CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES 
AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 


H.C   LODGE 


KMM16  ROOM 


LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Class 


CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES 

AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 
IN  LITERATURE  AND  POLITICS 


BY 


HENRY   CABOT   LODGE 


NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 

HARPER    &     BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 
1897 


BY  HENRY  CABOT  LODGE. 


THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES  IN  AMERICA.     With  Col 
ored  Map.    8vo,  Half  Leather,  $3  00. 

Opening  this  book,  the  reader  will  at  once  be  attracted 
to  the  beautiful,  clear  print,  which  is  such  a  luxury  when 
the  eye  is  dim  or  weary.  The  arrangement  is  most  ad 
mirable.  Eack  Colony  has  its  separate  history,  so  clear 
in  outline,  and  the  connection  each  has  with  the  other 
Colonies  so  distinctly  stated. — Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 


PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 


Copyright,  1897,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 


AU  rights  reserved. 


LI 


1ST] 


TO 
MY  FRIEND  AND  COLLEAGUE 

THE    HONORA1U.K 

GEORGE    FRISBIE    HOAR 

SENATOR  FROM  MASSACHUSETTS 


^  Stiitt-smiiii,  yet  friend  to  truth  .'   of  soul  sincere 
In  iiction  faithful,  and  in  honor  clear! 
Who  I'rokt-  no  promise,  ser~ce<i  no  prifctte  e>u1, 
\\'ho  fftiini'tf  no  title  iJHif  -'.'ha  li>*t  n<>  friend." 


NOTE 

With  the  exception  of  the  last,  these  essays  have  all  been 
published  before  in  different  magazines  and  reviews.  I 
desire  to  thank  the  editors  and  publishers  of  Scribners 
Magazine,  of  the  Cosmopolitan,  and  of  the  North  American 
Review  for  their  kind  permission  to  reprint  here  the  "Last 
Plantagenet,"  "As  to  Certain  Accepted  Heroes,"  and  the 
essay  on  "  Dr.  Holmes." 

11.     V>«     1  - . 

Washington,  D.  C.,  May,  1897. 


CONTENTS 

As  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES 3 

THE  LAST  PLANTAGENET 31 

SHAKESPEARE'S  AMERICANISMS 95 

CHATTERTON n? 

DR.  HOLMES 137 

A  LIHERAL  EDUCATION 157 

THE  HOME  OF  THE  CABOTS  ....  .189 

ENGLISH  ELECTIONS 203 

OUR  FOREIGN  POLICY 233 


AS  TO  CERTAIN   ACCEPTED  HEROES 


-  **7 

UNIVERSITY 

• 


AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES 

THERE  have  appeared  lately  some  very 
notable  prose  translations  of  the  Homeric 
poems ;  Professor  Palmer's  Odyssey,  and  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  "  done  into  English  "  by 
Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  Mr.  Butcher,  Mr.  Leaf, 
and  Mr.  Myers.  These  translations  seem  to 
prove  the  decided  superiority  of  fine  prose  in 
giving  an  English  version  of  the  great  Greek 
epics.  Whatever  their  advantages,  metre  or 
rhyme,  or  both,  impose  such  conditions  upon 
the  translator  that  he  is  inevitably  forced  to 
depart  more  widely  from  his  original  than  if 
he  were  not  so  fettered.  Of  course,  a  dry  and 
baldly  literal  rendering  of  Homer  into  English 
prose  is  of  little  value  except  as  a  labor-sav 
ing  device  for  the  school-boy.  The  proposi 
tion  that  prose  is  the  best  vehicle  for  transla 
tion  rests  necessarily  on  the  assumption  that 
the  prose  itself  is  of  the  best,  and  such  is  cer 
tainly  the  case  in  these  new  versions.  All  are 
the  work  of  ripe  scholars,  and  all  have  the  true 


4  AS    TO    CERTAIN    ACCEPTED    HEROES 

literary  touch.  The  English  is  not  only  fine, 
but  thoroughly  poetic  in  substance  if  not  in 
form.  It  is  true  they  are  translations,  but  it 
seems  as  if  nothing  else  could  be  said  against 
them.  They  preserve  the  spirit  and  fire  of 
the  original  better  than  any  other  rendering, 
and  they  bear  us  along  and  make  us  feel  the 
rush  and  swing  of  the  story  with  a  strength 
of  which  no  translation  in  verse  has  hitherto 
shown  itself  capable.  I  confess  that  I  rather 
prefer  Professor  Palmer,  because  his  language 
is  simpler,  somewhat  more  direct,  and  more 
purely  modern.  The  -slightly  archaic  forms 
and  occasional  archaic  words  used  by  Mr. 
Lang  and  his  associates  do  not  seem  a  gain. 
More  or  less  archaic  English  is  practically  no 
nearer  Homer  than  the  English  of  to-day, 
and  yet  it  is  distant  from  our  own  modes  of 
thought  and  speech.  The  employment  of  ar 
chaisms  seems,  in  fact,  to  contravene  direct 
ly  the  sound  rule  laid  down  in  Mr.  Lang's 
introduction  to  the  Odyssey,  that  a  transla 
tion  should  above  all  things  conform  to  the 
taste  and  speech  of  its  day,  as  otherwise  it 
falls  short  of  its  first  duty,  which  is  to  make 
the  original  as  simple  and  comprehensible  as 
possible. 
/Yet,  after  all,  this  is  but  a  small  point. 


AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES       5 

Where  everything  is  so  good  it  is  invidious 
to  grumble,  or  even  to  draw  comparisons. 
Moreover,  my  purpose  is  not  to  analyze  or 
criticise  the  merits  or  demerits  of  these 
translations,  which  may  be  said  to  be  whol 
ly  admirable,  but  to  set  down  certain  im 
pressions  which  have  come  to  me,  or,  rather, 
which  have  been  renewed  and  sharpened  by 
a  fresh  reading  of  Homer.  To  most  boys, 
I  think,  the  study  of  Greek  is  a  sore  trial, 
and  it  is  a  real  misfortune  that  the  Homeric 
poems  should  be  associated  in  their  minds 
with  the  idea  of  a  disagreeable  task.  At  the 
same  time,  although  boys  do  not  realize  the 
splendor  of  Homer's  poetry,  or  the  beauty  of 
Homer  purely  as  literature,  the  story  of  Odys 
seus,  simply  as  a  story,  has  to  them  an  abid 
ing  charm  despite  the  highly  adverse  circum 
stances  under  which  they  first  encounter  it. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  puzzles  most  boys,  I 
think,  as  it  puzzled  me,  to  understand  why  it 
was  worth  while  to  learn  with  great  labor  a 
language  which  in  the  Iliad,  the  only  book  we 
knew,  was  devoted  to  the  exploits  of  what 
seemed  to  the  boyish  mind  a  set  of  not  over 
brave  savages,  very  inferior  in  all  ways  to  such 
heroes  of  youth  as  Saladin  and  Richard  of  the 
Lion  Heart,  or  as  Uncas  and  Leather-Stock- 


6  AS    TO    CERTAIN    ACCEPTED    HEROES 

ing.  The  boyish  insensibility  to  the  wonder 
and  beauty  of  the  poetry  passes  away  like 
many  other  and  better  things  of  early  days, 
but  the  boyish  judgment  as  to  the  characters 
portrayed  in  the  Iliad,  after  many  readings 
and  a  good  many  years,  seems  to  have  been  on 
the  whole  correct.  If  it  is  correct,  then  it  is 
not  unworthy  of  consideration,  for  it  is  desira 
ble  in  literature  and  art  as  well  as  in  the  prac 
tical  affairs  of  every-day  life  to  look  at  things 
as  they  really  are,  and  to  try  not  to  be  led 
away  either  by  confusions  or  conventions. 

As  literature,  the  Homeric  poems  are  so 
great  that  the  world  has  fallen  very  easily  into 
the  habit  of  assuming  that  because  the  poetry 
is  noble  and  beautiful  the  people  whom  it  de 
picts  are  noble  and  beautiful  also.  This  is  per 
haps  a  natural  error,  but  it  is  none  the  less  an 
error,  for  there  is  no  necessary  connection  be 
tween  the  merit  of  a  literature  and  that  of  the 
people  it  pictures  to  us.  We  make  no  such 
mistake  with  modern  authors.  Nothing  in 
literature  rivals  Macbeth  in  tragic  power  or  in 
sustained  splendor  of  thought  and  diction. 
Some  of  the  greatest  passages  in  all  poetry 
are  spoken  by  Macbeth,  and  yet  no  one  would 
think  of  calling  him  a  hero  or  of  holding  him 
up  as  a  figure  for  after  ages  to  admire.  We 


AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES        7 

marvel  at  the  genius  which  created  Macbeth, 
but  we  are  in  no  doubt  as  to  Macbeth's  char 
acter.  With  Homer,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
have  associated  the  word  heroic.  The  age  of 
which  he  wrote  is  the  heroic  age,  his  verse 
is  called  heroic  verse,  and  his  characters  are 
conventionally  called  heroes.  It  is  this  con 
vention  which  embodies  the  error.  Homer 
drew  men  as  he  saw  them,  with  all  the  vivid 
force  of  genius,  but  that  fact  does  not  make 
them  heroes  in  the  accepted  sense  any  more 
than  Shakespeare's  genius  makes  lago  other 
than  the  villain  that  he  was  and  that  his  crea 
tor  intended  him  to  be. 

Neither  is  it  of  moment  whether  the  work 
is  history  or  fiction.  It  makes  no  difference 
so  far  as  this  question  is  concerned  whether 
the  men  and  women  of  whom  Homer  sang 
ever  lived  or  not.  They  are  a  good  deal  more 
real  and  have  entered  far  more  into  human 
life  and  thought  than  many  people  who  un 
doubtedly  have  lived  and  died,  and,  like  brave 
Percy,  been  food  for  worms.  They  have  been 
used  as  types  and  examples;  their  words  have 
become  part  of  the  speech,  their  deeds  a  por 
tion  of  the  history  of  mankind.  Their  very 
names  have  gone  broadcast  throughout  the 
world  and  have  been  given  to  children  with- 


8  AS    TO    CERTAIN    ACCEPTED    HEROES 

out  a  drop  of  Greek  blood  in  their  veins,  who 
in  many  instances  very  likely  went  through 
life  without  ever  reading  the  exploits  of  their 
namesakes,  or  knowing  who  those  namesakes 
were. 

Such  people  as  those  whom  we  know  in  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  whether  they  really 
lived  once  upon  a  time,  or  whether  they  were 
but  the  creations  of  the  poet's  brain,  deserve 
consideration  for  their  effect  on  humanity 
quite  as  much  as  most  well-established  his 
toric  characters,  and  are  also  as  a  rule  far 
more  interesting.  Moreover,  whether  the  he 
roes  of  the  Iliad  existed  or  not  in  those  pre 
cise  forms,  they  certainly  existed  as  a  society, 
for  Homer,  like  all  great  imaginative  writers 
of  healthy  mind,  pictured  what  he  saw  and 
knew.  He  threw  over  it  all  the  glamour  of 
genius,  but  as  he  was  a  great  genius  he  was 
therefore  essentially  true  both  to  life  and 
nature. 

Let  us  look,  then,  at  these  Homeric  charac 
ters  in  the  light  of  historical  common-sense, 
with  Homer  himself  as  our  authority.  Let  us 
forget  for  a  moment  that  they  are  chronicled 
in  verse  of  surpassing  beauty,  and  take  only 
the  bare  facts  as  Homer  gives  them. 

Before  coming  to  details,  it  must  be  remem- 


AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES        9 

bcred  at  the  outset  that  these  Homeric  people 
have  been  held  up  for  generations  among  the 
children  of  men  not  as  heroes,  in  the  technical 
sense  of  belonging  to  what  is  called  the  heroic 
age,  but  as  real  and  lasting  heroes,  to  be  ever 
imitated  and  admired.  We  need  go  no  fur 
ther  for  an  example  than  to  Mr.  Myers's  son 
net,  prefixed  to  this  very  translation,  in  order 
to  find  Achilles  called  "  chivalric."  Let  us  be 
gin,  therefore,  with  Achilles,  greatest  and  most 
heroic  of  the  heroes.  What  are  the  facts 
about  him  as  Homer  gives  them  ?  They  arc 
easily  obtained,  for  the  wrath  of  Peleus'  son 
and  its  consequences  really  form  the  Iliad, 
and,  familiar  as  they  are,  I  must  venture  to 
restate  them,  for  on  these  facts,  plainly  stated, 
the  case  largely  turns. 

Achilles  was  admittedly  the  best  fighter, 
the  strongest  man,  and  the  most  important 
chief  among  those  who  gathered  with  their 
followers  for  the  siege  of  Troy.  On  the  way 
thither  the  combined  forces  landed  on  a  buc 
caneering  expedition  and  took  the  city  of 
King  Action.  To  Achilles  in  his  share  of  the 
spoils  fell  Briseis;  to  Agamemnon,  Chryscis. 
But  the  latter  was  the  daughter  of  the  priest 
of  Phoebus,  and  when  Agamemnon  refused  to 
give  her  up  the  sun  god  sent  a  pestilence 


IO      AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES 

among  the  Greeks.  Then  Achilles  insisted 
that  Agamemnon  should  give  up  Chryseis, 
and  the  king  of  men  agreed,  but  on  condition 
that  he  should  have  Briseis  by  way  of  com 
pensation.  Thereupon  followed  a.  dispute,  ' 
purely  verbal  and  physically  harmless,  which 
is  an  interesting  example  of  the  dignity  of 
this  particular  body  of  heroes.  There  is  in  it, 
alas,  only  a  ha'porth  of  argument  to  an  intol 
erable  deal  of  personal  abuse.  At  one  stage 
the  god-like  Achilles  came  almost  to  the  point 
of  fighting,  but  as  that  was  something  the 
Homeric  warriors  always  considered  careful 
ly,  he  counselled  with  Athene,  who  advised 
him  not  to  fight  but  to  revile  Agamemnon — a 
course  which  Achilles  pursued  with  the  ut 
most  good-will  and  success. 

We  discover  from  the  conversation  which 
ensued  that  in  the  opinion  of  Achilles  the 
king  of  men  was  "  shameless,"  "  crafty,"  and  a 
"  dog-face,"  that  he  was  a  drunkard  with  the 
"  heart  of  a  deer,"  without  "  courage  to  arm 
for  battle"  or  "to  lay  ambush."  Agamem 
non  was  more  guarded  in  his  language,  hav 
ing  a  wholesome  fear  of  Achilles'  superior 
strength,  but  he  carried  his  point  and  got 
Briseis  when  Chryseis  was  returned.  There 
upon  Achilles  retired  to  his  tent,  a  movement 


AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES      II 

which  by  his  action  has  become  the  common 
metaphor  for  sulking,  and  then  through  his 
mother's  aid  he  obtained  from  Zeus  the  prom 
ise  that  he  should  be  avenged  by  having  the 
Greeks  driven  and  beaten  by  the  Trojans 
until  they  were  ready  to  sue  for  his  return  on 
his  own  terms.  All,  as  we  know,  went  as  he 
amiably  desired.  His  friends  and  allies  were 
beaten  and  slaughtered  in  a  series  of  engage 
ments,  and  Achilles  brought  all  this  upon 
them,  and,  in  fact,  deserted  them,  because  a 
slave  girl  had  been  taken  from  him.  His  al 
lies  evidently  understood  him,  for  they  tried 
to  bribe  him  to  come  back  by  offering  gold,  a 
form  of  persuasion  which  was  perhaps  judi 
cious  but  was  certainly  not  heroic.  The  one 
cry  of  Achilles  throughout  is,  in  fact,  that  he 
had  not  received  his  proper  share  of  the 
plunder,  and  that  even  from  what  he  got  the 
best  had  been  taken.  For  a  treachery  so  con 
siderable  and  so  vindictive  as  his,  the  cause, 
baldly  stated,  does  not  seem  very  noble  even 
in  this  materialistic  and  money-making  age. 

Finally  the  Greeks  were  so  pushed  that 
Achilles  permitted  his  dearest  friend  to  wear 
his  own  magic  armor  and  lead  forth  the  fa 
mous  Myrmidons.  In  the  ensuing  fight  Pa- 
troclus  was  killed  by  Hector,  who  got  the 


12  AS    TO    CERTAIN    ACCEPTED    HEROES 

armor  and  put  it  on,  and  the  news  of  Pa- 
troclus'  fall  was  brought  to  Achilles,  who  was 
filled  with  rage  and  grief.  One  might  sup 
pose  that,  under  the  circumstances,  this  great 
fighter  would  have  caught  up  the  first  weap 
ons  he  could  find  and  rushed  forth  to  avenge 
his  friend.  Not  at  all.  He  sat  him  down 
after  much  fine  talk  and  waited  until  his 
mother  procured  from  Vulcan  a  new  and 
more  splendid  set  of  impenetrable  armor. 
Thus  equipped  he  sallied  forth,  and,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  killed  without  difficulty  a 
number  of  unimportant  persons  and  drove  the 
Trojans  before  him.  He  slew  all  who  came 
in  his  way,  even  those  who  begged  for  quar 
ter—which,  it  must  be  said,  all  the  Greeks  did 
habitually,  and  apparently  from  preference. 
In  the  case  of  Lykaon,  however,  Achilles 
went  a  step  beyond  even  the  general  pleasant 
custom.  Lykaon  not  only  fell  at  the  great 
warrior's  feet  and  asked  for  mercy,  but  he 
was  totally  unarmed.  Achilles,  rather  amused 
at  the  request  for  quarter,  butchered  the  de 
fenceless  boy  and  passed  on.  This  was  very 
likely  a  customary  deed,  suitable  to  the  time 
and  place,  but  abstractly  it  was  hardly  a  he 
roic  one. 

At   last   he  came  to   Hector,  who  awaited 


AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES      13 

him  outside  the  walls.  Hector  sought  an 
agreement  that  the  victor  should  return  the 
body  of  the  vanquished  in  the  fight,  a  propo 
sition  which  Achilles,  with  the  abusive  words 
of  which  he  had  large  command,  declined. 
Hector  ran  three  times  around  the  walls  and 
Achilles  failed  to  overtake  him.  Then  Athene 
appeared  in  the  likeness  of  Deiphobus  and 
persuaded  Hector  to  stand.  Achilles  threw 
his  spear  without  effect,  and  Athene  returned 
it.  Hector  threw  his  and  turned  to  his 
brother,  Deiphobus,  for  a  second,  only  to  find 
that  there  was  no  one  there.  Then,  as 
Shakespeare  would  put  it,  "  they  fight,  and 
Hector  is  slain."  After  his  victory  the 
"  chivalric "  Achilles  dragged  Hector's  body 
behind  his  chariot,  proposed  to  give  it  to  the 
dogs,  slew  twelve  Trojan  prisoners  in  honor 
of  Patroclus,  and  finally  gave  up  Hector's 
body  only  by  the  direct  intervention  of  the 
gods. 

This,  in  the  driest  outline,  is  the  story  of 
Achilles,  as  Homer  gives  it.  What  manner  of 
man  do  the  facts  disclose  ?  Simply  an  unusu 
ally  brutal  savage  of  colossal  strength,  treach 
erous  and  cruel,  ready  to  sacrifice  friends  for  a 
quarrel  over  the  spoils,  utterly  devoid  of  gen 
erosity  towards  his  foes,  and  not  particularly 


14      AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES 

brave.  He  wore  impenetrable  armor ;  he  had 
horses  of  divine  origin ;  he  knew  by  divine 
revelation  that  he  was  going  to  kill  Hector, 
and  he  had  the  treacherous  assistance  of  a  god 
dess.  Under  such  conditions  it  required  but  lit 
tle  courage  to  fight  a  man  who,  at  the  critical 
moment,  had  no  helper,  human  or  divine.  The 
fight  with  Hector  is  nobly  told,  but,  on  Achil 
les'  side  at  least,  it  was  a  most  ignoble  fight. 

Men  must  be  judged  by  their  own  age  and 
time  and  by  their  own  standards,  if  we  would 
judge  them  with  any  justice.  To  do  otherwise 
would  be  absurd.  But  it  is  equally  absurd  to 
hold  up  men  of  a  past  age  as  abstractly  he 
roes  because  the  poet  of  the  time,  writing  from 
his  own  point  of  view,  declares  them  to  be  so. 
To  condemn  Achilles  because  he  had  the 
morals  and  manners  of  a  South  Sea  Islander 
of  the  time  of  Captain  Cook,  and  therefore 
does  not  come  up  to  our  standards,  would  be 
highly  unjust,  but  to  treat  him  as  a  heroic 
figure  for  all  after  generations  to  admire  is 
simple  nonsense.  He  was  a  savage,  and  a  bad 
one.  Tried  even  by  the  savage  code,  he  stands 
low,  and  to  talk  of  him  as  "  chivalric  "  is  to 
give  him  qualities  utterly  unknown  to  him  or 
any  of  his  fellows.  As  a  mere  fighting  savage, 
moreover,  he  falls  far  below  the  Zulus  who 


AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES      15 

thronged  about  Rorkc's  Drift,  or  the  North 
American  Indians  who  cut  off  and  destroy 
ed  British  and  American  armies  with  all  the 
strength  of  centuries  of  civilization  behind 
them. 

It  is  not  fair,  however,  to  judge  a  people 
from  an  individual.  Achilles  was  much  the 
worst,  as  Hector  was  much  the  best,  of  Homer's 
men.  Hector  showed  generosity  and  nobility 
of  character,  and  despite  his  running  away  from 
Achilles,  he  was,  on  the  whole,  the  bravest  of 
them  all.  But  what  is  of  most  concern  is  the 
race,  and  on  this  the  poem  gives  us  abundant 
information.  It  can  be  easily  condensed,  and 
is  not  flattering.  All  the  chiefs,  from  Nestor 
down,  bragged  and  boasted  vociferously  to 
each  other  and  to  their  foes.  They  had  no 
regard  for  plighted  faith.  The  Trojan  Panda- 
rus  shot  at  Menelaus  when  it  had  been  agreed 
that  Menelaus  and  Paris  should  settle  the  dif 
ferences  by  single  combat.  Diomed  and  Odys 
seus  captured  Dolon,  and,  on  promise  that  his 
life  should  be  spared,  Dolon  gave  them  infor 
mation  about  the  Trojan  camp.  Thereupon 
they  slew  him. 

Lying  they  regarded  not  only  with  leniency 
but  approbation.  When  Odysseus  landed  in 
Ithaca  he  met  Athene  disguised,  and,  in  re- 


1 6      AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES 

sponse  to  her  questions,  lied  artfully.  The 
goddess,  revealing  herself,  not  only  praised 
him  for  his  prudence,  which  was  natural,  per 
haps,  but  for  his  skill  in  falsehood. 

They  were  ungenerous  to  their  foes,  gave  no 
quarter  except  to  preserve  slaves,  slaughtered 
prisoners,  and  considered  that  it  was  a  matter 
of  course  to  give  up  a  captured  city  to  rapine 
and  destruction,  saving  only  women  for  slaves 
and  concubines,  with  whom  each  chief  was 
amply  provided.  All  these  qualities,  it  may 
be  said,  are  to  be  expected  among  a  primitive 
and  savage  people.  This  is  undoubtedly  true, 
and  if  we  treat  Homer's  Greeks  as  savages,  as 
they  ought  to  be  treated,  and  not  as  heroes, 
according  to  the  conventional  modern  usage, 
the  defence  is  complete;  but  then  this  defence, 
of  itself,  proves  the  case  against  the  heroes. 

Moreover,  whether  savages  or  not,  in  one 
particular  these  people  ought  to  have  excelled. 
Physical  courage  is  the  commonest  virtue  of 
men,  whether  savage  or  civilized,  and  in  this 
very  point  the  men  of  the  Homeric  poems  fall 
short.  Let  us  take  a  few  examples.  In  the 
fourth  book  Agamemnon  "drave  the  cow 
ards,"  as  if  they  were  a  recognized  body,  into 
the  midst  of  the  army,  and  then  warned  his 
men  not  to  be  eager  to  fight  single-handed, 


AS   TO    CERTAIN    ACCEPTED    HEROES  17 

but  only  to  assail  the  foe  from  their  chariots — 
which  was  not  exactly  an  inspiring  form  of 
military  address.  In  the  thick  of  the  com 
bat,  whenever  any  fresh  warriors  approached, 
or  any  man  of  renown,  the  chiefs  individually 
would  carefully  consider  whether  to  fight  or 
run  away,  which  seems  to  have  been  always 
an  open  question,  although  not  commonly  so 
regarded  by  fighting  men,  especially  of  heroic 
mould.  So  Diomed,  one  of  the  best,  doubted 
in  the  fifth  book.  In  the  eighth  book  they  all 
bolted  except  Nestor,  who  could  not  run  away 
because  his  horse  was  "  foredone,"  and  Dio 
med,  who  took  occasion,  with  great  justice  un 
der  the  circumstances,  to  call  Odysseus  a  cow 
ard.  Subsequently  Diomed  had  another  fit  of 
doubting  as  to  whether  flight  was  not  best,  but 
managed,  after  much  hesitation,  to  stand  his 
ground.  In  the  ninth  book,  the  king  of  men 
was  all  for  taking  to  the  ships  and  running 
away,  because  they  had  met  with  a  reverse. 
Odysseus  also  doubts  in  the  eleventh  book, 
and  so  it  goes.  Examples  might  be  multiplied 
to  show  that  flight  was  always  a  reasonable 
alternative,  duly  considered  even  in  the  heat 
of  battle,  and  in  no  case  a  disgrace.  It  is  curi 
ous  also  to  note  how  little  hand-to-hand  fight 
ing  there  is.  Nearly  all  the  death-blows  and 


l8       AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES 

wounds  are  given  with  hurled  spears  or  with 
arrows.  It  is  obvious  that  the  men  of  Homer 
had  not,  as  a  rule,  any  liking  for  close  work  with 
the  sword — the  surest  sign  that  they  were  not  a 
hard-fighting  race  and  that  they  could  not  stand 
punishment.  They  evidently  did  not  com 
prehend  the  maxim  laid  down  by  Dr.  Holmes, 
when  he  compared  the  American  bowie-knife 
with  the  Roman  sword,  that  the  people  who 
shorten  their  swords  lengthen  their  boundaries. 

Most  striking  of  all,  however,  is  the  way  in 
which  Homer's  men  left  the  field  if  they  were 
wounded.  When  Agamemnon  was  hurt  in 
the  forearm  and  Diomed  in  the  foot,  both  left 
the  battle  and  betook  themselves  at  once  to 
their  tents.  It  is  not  easy  to  understand  how 
any  army  could  have  done  very  effective 
fighting  when  their  chiefs  were  ready  to  re 
tire  for  such  trifling  hurts  as  these.  But  it 
was  apparently  the  usual  practice ;  and  far 
more  significant  than  the  act  itself  is  the  fact 
that  the  poet  treats  these  withdrawals  from 
the  field  as  wholly  a  matter  of  course. 

It  would  be  unfair  perhaps  to  contrast  such 
performances  as  these  with  the  Roman  fight 
ing,  or  with  that  of  the  English  who  fell 
around  Harold,  at  Hastings,  or  of  the  Scotch 
who  died  by  the  side  of  James,  at  Flodden, 


AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES       19 

or  of  the  Americans  who  were  killed  to  the 
last  man  at  the  Alamo  without  even  leaving 
a  messenger  of  death,  as  the  Greeks  did  at 
Thermopylae.  It  is  quite  fair,  however,  to 
compare  these  Homeric  warriors  with  those  of 
another  primitive  people  also  celebrated  in 
the  verse  of  an  early  minstrel.  What  a  poor 
figure  do  the  Greeks  cut  by  the  side  of  the 
Nibelungs !  At  the  crossing  of  the  river 
Hagan  is  struck  down  twice  from  behind,  but 
he  rises,  hurt  as  he  is,  slays  the  boatman,  and 
takes  the  boat.  If  he  had  been  like  Aga 
memnon  he  would  have  retreated  to  his  tent 
and  had  his  head  bound  up.  Or  take  the 
most  famous  scene  of  all  in  the  German  epic, 
the  final  struggle  in  Etzel's  hall.  That  grim 
fighting  was  simply  impossible  to  such  men 
as  Homer  described.  In  a  word,  the  Nibe 
lungs  are  as  superior  to  the  Greeks  as  fight 
ers  as  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  are  superior  to 
the  Nibelungenlied  as  poetry. 

Take,  again,  another  example  from  a  kin 
dred  race,  the  Jomsborg  viking,  who  in  fierce 
sea-fight  having  cleft  his  enemy,  Thorstein,  to 
the  waist,  has  both  hands  cut  off  at  the  wrist, 
and  thus  finds  himself  helpless  and  surround 
ed  by  foes.  Clasping  his  two  boxes  of  treas 
ure  with  his  bleeding  stumps  he  calls  his  few 


20  AS   TO   CERTAIN   ACCEPTED    HEROES 

surviving  men  to  follow  him,  and  plunges  into 
the  sea,  leaving  to  his  enemies  only  a  bloody 
wreck.  Still  another  instance  from  the  same 
early  literature  of  a  primitive  people  is  the  fa 
miliar  story  of  Gizli,  the  outlaw.  Trapped  and 
surrounded  by  a  band  of  fifteen  men  as  brave 
as  himself,  he  kills  or  mortally  wounds  eight  of 
them,  and  when  pierced  with  spears  he  man 
ages  to  bind  his  cloak  about  his  wounds,  and 
throwing  himself  upon  his  assailants  kills  one 
more  and  falls  dead  upon  the  body  of  his  foe. 
These  men  were  pirates  and  savages,  if  you 
will,  and  so  were  the  Homeric  Greeks,  but  the 
Norse  viking  and  the  Icelandic  outlaw  were 
redeemed  by  a  fierce  courage  and  a  capacity 
for  desperate  fighting  of  which  the  Iliad  shows 
no  trace. 

Historically,  and  as  a  plain  matter  of  fact, 
the  Homeric  Greeks  were  a  number  of  small 
tribes  under  different  chiefs,  united  for  the 
purpose  of  destroying  another,  and  probably 
kindred,  collection  of  similar  tribes.  They 
were  primarily  buccaneers,  not  differing  in 
any  essential  respect  from  Morgan  and  the 
other  heroes  of  the  Spanish  Main,  except  that 
they  were  very  inferior  in  fight.  When  faring 
over  the  sea  they  would  land  and  attack  any 
peaceful  city  they  could  get  at.  Sometimes 


AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES      21 

they  were  successful,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
holy  city  of  King  Action,  sometimes  they 
were  repulsed,  as  Odysseus  was  by  the  Kebri- 
ones.  In  this  aspect  they  were  simple  pi 
rates.  When  they  took  a  city,  as  has  been 
said,  they  sacked  it,  killed  the  men,  and  car 
ried  off  the  women  and  children  into  con 
cubinage  and  slavery.  They  did  not,  indeed, 
always  stop  there,  for,  in  the  case  of  Troy, 
Agamemnon  reminds  Menelaus  in  one  passage 
that  they  are  to  kill  every  one,  even  to  the 
child  in  the  mother's  womb. 

When  they  were  all  gathered  before  Troy 
they  quarrelled  among  themselves,  and  were 
eaten  up  by  bitter  feuds  and  jealousies.  They 
did  a  great  deal  of  declaiming,  and  although 
the  language  put  into  their  mouths  by  Homer 
is  magnificent,  their  sentiments  were  low,  and 
the  frequency  and  violence  of  their  vituper 
ation  were  amazing.  They  did  a  good  deal 
of  not  very  desperate  fighting,  were  ready  to 
run  away  on  slight  provocation,  and  finally  car 
ried  the  city  by  a  trick.  The  gods,  who  repre 
sented  their  ideals,  were  on  the  whole  lower 
than  their  worshippers,  by  whom  they  were 
at  times  even  beaten  in  battle.  In  a  word, 
the  Homeric  poems  describe  to  us  the  doings 
of  certain  primitive  tribes  who  were  cruel  and 


22  AS    TO    CERTAIN    ACCEPTED    HEROES 

treacherous,  subtle  and  cunning,  liars  and  brag 
garts,  and,  withal,  not  over  brave,  although 
fighting  was  their  principal  business  in  life, 
and  courage  should  have  been  their  conspicu 
ous  and  redeeming  quality. 

Homer  drew  men  and  society  as  they  were, 
and  the  facts  of  history  fall  in  with  his  facts. 
It  is  only  when  we  adopt  the  "  chivalric  "  and 
heroic  theory  that  history  and  Homer  fail  to 
agree.  Of  the  early  exploits  of  the  Greek 
race  Thucydides  says :  "  It  is  impossible  to 
speak  with  certainty  of  what  is  so  remote,  but 
from  all  that  we  can  really  investigate  I  should 
say  that  they  were  no  very  great  things." 
The  Greeks  of  history  were  the  true  descend 
ants  of  Homer's  men,  but  bore  no  relation  to 
the  fictitious  beings  whom  a  late  posterity  has 
seen  fit  to  find  in  the  Iliad.  The  historic 
Greeks  as  they  became  civilized  improved  in 
sentiments,  morals,  and  manners  over  the  Ho 
meric  Greeks.  They  were  ingenious,  subtle, 
clever.  They  were  fertile  in  orators,  writers, 
and  artists.  They  produced  a  sculpture  and  an 
architecture  which  have  never  been  equalled, 
and  a  literature  which  stands  among  the  fore 
most  of  the  world.  They  have  had  more  ef 
fect  upon  human  thought  probably  than  any 
people  who  have  ever  lived.  They  improved, 


AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES      23 

too,  in  fighting,  but  as  we  have  only  their  own 
story,  and  as  they  retained  their  ancestors' 
habit  of  speaking  extremely  well  of  their  own 
exploits,  it  is  difficult  to  say  how  much  they 
had  improved.  They  fought  better  than  the 
Asiatics,  and  they  kept  the  Persians  out  of 
Europe,  but  I  confess  I  have  always  longed  to 
have  a  Persian  account  of  those  wars,  in  order 
to  gain  some  means  of  knowing  just  how 
much  the  Greeks  lied  about  the  numbers  of 
Xerxes'  army. 

But,  after  all  is  said,  the  fact  remains  that 
the  Greeks  politically  continued  to  be  at  bot 
tom  a  set  of  jarring,  jealous  tribes.  They 
built  cities,  but  not  empires;  they  founded 
municipalities,  but  not  states.  They  failed 
not  merely  to  govern  others,  but  them 
selves.  When  they  came  in  contact  with  a 
real  fighting  people  like  the  Macedonians 
they  went  down  before  them,  and  they  fell 
an  easy  prey  to  the  Romans.  They  were  far 
cleverer  thnn  their  conquerors,  and  yet,  as 
Bagehot  says:  "The  Romans  were  praetors 
and  the  Greeks  barbers." 

Such  a  fate  must  have  been  predicted  for 
the  descendants  of  the  Homeric  people  if 
they  are  looked  at  rightly,  and  not  through 
the  mist  of  modern  misconceptions.  With 


24      AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES 

all  their  talent  and  all  their  genius  the  Greeks 
were  not  a  fighting  or  governing  race.  Low 
ell  says,  somewhere,  "  I  cannot  help  sympa 
thizing  with  the  Romans,  who  thought  it 
better  to  found  an  empire  than  to  build  an 
epic  or  carve  a  statue,"  and  this  sympathy 
is  wholesome  and  sound.  It  is  true  that  we 
respect  more  for  their  character  and  force  the 
men  who  formed  the  Roman  law  and  built 
the  Roman  roads  than  we  do  those  who 
reared  the  Parthenon  or  produced  the  lit 
erature  of  Greece.  The  Romans  were  states 
men,  lawgivers,  and  soldiers,  while  the  Greeks 
ministered  to  their  pleasure,  gave  them  their 
art,  and  improved  their  literature.  In  the  an 
cient  world  these  different  qualities  did  not 
exist  in  the  same  nation,  and  it  has  been  re 
served  to  the  English-speaking  people  to 
combine  the  force  and  power  of  a  governing 
and  conquering  race  with  the  greatest  litera 
ture,  excepting  the  Greek  alone,  that  the 
world  has  yet  seen. 

The  accepted  view  of  Homer's  chiefs,  how 
ever,  is  but  part  of  the  conventional  and  tradi 
tional  theory  about  the  classics  generally. 
The  classics  were  indissolubly  associated  in 
men's  minds  with  the  revival  of  learning  and 
the  escape  of  civilized  man  from  the  darkness 


AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES      25 

of  the  Middle  Ages.  People  felt  for  the  litera 
ture  and  history  of  Greece  and  Rome  not 
only  a  just  admiration  but  a  profound  grati 
tude.  Thus  it  came  to  pass  very  naturally 
that  education  in  its  highest  form  meant  clas 
sical  education.  To  know  the  classics  was  to 
have  a  liberal  education,  the  education  of  a 
gentleman.  An  Englishman  might  be  igno 
rant  of  the  most  familiar  facts  of  science  or 
history  either  of  his  own  or  other  nations  if 
he  could  quote  Horace  aptly  and  correctly. 
To  this  day,  writing  Latin  verses  is  a  principal 
exercise  of  English  school-boys — a  form  of  ed 
ucation  about  as  useful  and  deserving  of  the 
name  as  it  would  be  to  teach  them  to  make 
Choctaw  acrostics  or  to  write  the  Lord's 
Prayer  or  the  Ten  Commandments  within 
the  compass  of  the  little-finger  nail. 

Of  late  years  there  has  been  a  revulsion 
everywhere  against  the  classical  tradition,  and 
the  danger  now  is  that  it  will  go  too  far. 
Simply  because  the  dead  languages  have  no 
obvious  practical  use,  it  would  be  narrow  in 
the  extreme  to  lay  them  aside  in  our  higher 
education.  But  they  should  stand  on  a  true 
and  not  on  a  false  ground.  Latin  and  Greek 
should  be  studied  and  learned,  because  they 
open  the  doors  in  the  one  case  to  the  history 


26       AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES 

of  a  great  people  and  in  the  other  to  one  of 
the  noblest  literatures  and  much  of  the  best 
thought  mankind  has  yet  produced.  They 
should  be  learned,  because  they  enlarge  the 
mind  and  train  and  develop  its  powers.  The 
classics  cannot  longer  hope  to  live  on  the  the 
ory  that  they  are  the  sum  of  education,  be 
cause  this  is  false,  and  the  falsehood  kills. 
But  they  will  live  forever  on  their  own  merits 
as  the  voices  of  a  great  past  in  literature  and 
history  which  every  well-educated  man  must 
be  able  to  hear  and  understand. 

What  matters  it,  so  far  as  the  glory  of  the 
literature  and  the  poetry  is  concerned,  wheth 
er  the  men  of  whom  Homer  sang  were  leaders 
of  savage  tribes  or  not?  It  matters  nothing. 
But  it  is  of  consequence  that  we  should  put 
into  Homer  people  who  do  not  belong  there, 
and  then  give  them  out  of  our  own  ideas  qual 
ities  they  never  had.  Again  the  falsehood  kills. 
We  love  Homer,  not  because  he  drew  a  num 
ber  of  persons  whom  we  have  chosen  to  speak 
of  as  heroes  after  the  types  of  chivalry,  an 
cient  and  modern,  but  because  he  has  pict 
ured  to  us  in  immortal  verse  part  of  the  mov 
ing  pageant  of  human  life.  He  has  stirred 
and  delighted  generations  of  men  by  the  cre 
ations  of  a  genius  and  an  imagination  beside 


AS  TO  CERTAIN  ACCEPTED  HEROES       27 

which  the  modern  literature  which  calls  him 
"  primitive  "  looks  as  frail  and  small  as  the 
Arab  tent  lurking  in  the  shadow  of  the  Pyra 
mids  when  we  compare  it  with  the  mighty 
mass  of  the  royal  sepulchres  towering  above 
it.  We  love  Homer  for  the  beauty  of  his 
poetry,  for  his  descriptions  of  sea  and  land, 
of  morning  and  evening,  of  battles  and  sieges, 
of  men  and  women  in  their  strength  and  love 
liness.  Why  should  we  seek  to  thrust  into  all 
this  imperishable  beauty  a  set  of  persons  who 
have  no  business  there,  because  they  are  the 
creatures  of  our  own  brains,  made  after  our  own 
fashions?  It  adds  nothing  to  Homer  to  con 
fuse  his  poetry  with  the  characters  it  portrays. 
Of  all  people  we  should  take  Homer  and 
Homer's  men  exactly  as  they  are,  for  of  Homer 
we  can  rightly  use  the  words  of  the  one  great 
genius  who  has  soared  far  beyond  him,  and 
say,  as  Shakespeare  does  : 

"  He  is  as  true  as  truth's  simplicity, 
And  simpler  than  the  infancy  of  truth." 


THE   LAST   PLANTAGENET 


THE   LAST   PLANTAGENET 

SOME  one  has  said  that  "  the  youth  of  Eng 
land  take  their  theology  from  Milton  and 
their  history  from  Shakespeare."  Whether 
the  first  proposition  is  true  or  false,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  second  holds  good,  not 
only  as  to  the  youth  of  England,  but  as  to  all 
who  speak  or  read  the  English  tongue.  The 
history  of  England  which  Shakespeare  wrote 
is  the  history  we  really  know,  and  the  kings 
he  put  upon  the  stage  are  those  who  are  real 
and  vivid  to  English-speaking  people  to-day. 
Whatever  these  sovereigns  may  have  been  in 
reality,  we  think  of  them  now  as  Shakespeare 
drew  them.  His  conception  has  become  that 
of  the  English-speaking  world,  and  will  so  re 
main. 

Life-like  as  all  these  royal  portraits  are,  how 
ever,  there  is  one  that  stands  out  with  peculiar 
vividness.  This  is  the  last  Plantagcnet,  Rich 
ard  III.  Some  of  the  historical  plays  are 
never  acted,  and  others  seldom  and  irregular- 


32  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

ly.  But  Richard  III.  is  always  upon  the  stage. 
The  tragedy  which  bears  his  name  goes  far 
beyond  the  circle  of  those  who  read,  and 
passes  easily  out  of  the  range  of  occasion 
al  "runs"  and  scattered  performances,  which 
are  the  lot  of  its  companions.  It  is  intensely 
popular  as  a  play.  It  packs  theatres,  it  thrills 
audiences,  it  stirs  the  ambition  of  every  aspir 
ing  tragedian,  and  it  is  ever  before  the  public. 
Shakespeare's  Richard  is  the  best  known  ruler 
England  has  ever  had,  for  he  is  as  familiar  to 
the  shoeblack  and  the  newsboy,  innocent  of  all 
learning  and  shouting  applause  from  the  gal 
lery,  as  he  is  to  the  patient  scholar  in  his  closet, 
giving  laborious  days  and  nights  to  the  mend 
ing  of  a  corrupt  line,  or  the  settlement  of  a 
doubtful  reading  for  some  vast  Variorum  edi 
tion  of  the  great  dramatist. 

It  is  not  a  hold  upon  posterity,  however, 
which  any  one  need  envy.  Lord  Lyndhurst 
said  that  the  knowledge  that  Lord  Campbell 
would  write  his  biography  added  a  new  terror 
to  death.  If  Richard  could  have  known  that 
his  story  would  have  been  told  solely  by  his 
enemies,  and  would  then  have  passed  into  the 
hands  of  the  mightiest  genius  among  men,  to 
be  depicted  with  all  the  resources  of  consum 
mate  art  and  all  the  prejudices  of  a  servant  of 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  33 

the  Tudors,  he  might  well  have  felt  that  there 
was  a  new  pang  added  even  to  the  terrors  of 
a  mediaeval  death  -  bed.  Yet  such  has  been 
his  fate.  Shakespeare  took  the  statements  of 
one  of  the  King's  bitterest  enemies,  and  from 
them  developed  the  Richard  that  we  know. 
In  the  light  of  recent  discoveries,  it  is  possi 
ble  now,  in  some  measure,  to  see  how  near 
the  great  poet  came  to  the  historic  truth. 
Richard  is  so  distinct  to  us  in  the  work  of  the 
dramatist  that  his  career  is  always  interesting, 
and  has  found  many  writers  who  have  devot 
ed  to  it  much  time  and  study.  With  the  new 
materials,  however,  which  modern  research 
has  discovered,  the  subject  has  risen  from  the 
level  of  a  merely  curious  inquiry  about  an  in 
teresting  character  and  the  events  of  a  dark 
period,  to  a  plane  where  the  great  forces  of 
English  history  are  disclosed,  and  something 
more  than  a  mere  bloody  struggle  for  personal 
power  is  revealed. 

The  first  step  is  to  define  the  Richard  we 
know  ;  the  second  is  to  compare  this  Richard 
and  the  supposed  events  of  his  life  with  the 
facts  which  the  centuries  have  spared,  and 
which  now,  after  long  hiding,  have  been 
brought  to  light.  But  few  words  are  needed 
to  set  forth  Shakespeare's  Richard,  so  well  is 
3 


34  THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET 

he  known  to  us  all.  He  appears  in  three 
plays  —  in  the  second  and  third  parts  of 
Henry  VI. ,  as  well  as  in  the  one  that  bears 
his  own  name,  and  is  depicted  with  that  force 
of  drawing  and  warmth  of  color  of  which  only 
one  man  in  all  literature  is  capable.  He  is 
drawn  with  the  utmost  care  and  precision  of 
definition,  and  his  career  is  worked  out  with 
unsparing  logic.  From  his  first  utterance  to 
his  last,  there  is  not  a  break  or  a  slip  to  mar 
the  artistic  completeness  of  the  whole.  The 
man  stands  before  us  with  all  his  tendencies, 
motives,  and  passions  laid  bare,  and  their  con 
sequences  are  carried  out  with  the  relentless 
force  of  a  syllogism. 

Richard  makes  his  first  appearance  in  the 
second  part  of  Henry  VI.,  when  York  sum 
mons  his  sons  to  back  him  in  his  claim  to  the 
crown. 

"  Queen  Margaret. — His  sons,  he  says,  will  give 
their  words  for  him. 

"  York. — Will  you  not,  sons  ? 

"Edward. — Ay,  noble  father,  if  our  words  will 
serve. 

"  Richard. — And  if  words  will  not,  then  our  weap 
ons  shall." 

This  first  sentence  defines  him  at  once  as 


THE   LAST   PLANTAGENBT 


35 


the  fighter  and  the  man  of  action.     Then  he 
bandies  words  with  Clifford,  who  cries : 

"Hence,  heap  of  wrath,  foul,  indigested  lump, 
As  crooked  in  thy  manners  as  thy  shape." 

Thus  he  is  immediately  stigmatized  as  physi 
cally  hideous,  and  the  first  prejudice — that  of 
the  eye — is  roused  against  him.  The  battle 
of  St.  Albans  follows.  Richard  kills  the  Duke 
of  Somerset,  and,  apostrophizing  the  body, 
exclaims : 

"  Sword,  hold  thy  temper ;    heart  be  wrathful  still : 
Priests  pray  for  enemies,  but  princes  kill." 

The  last  line  marks  sharply  the  man  whose 
theory  of  life  is  to  kill  all  who  cross  his  pur 
poses,  while,  as  the  play  closes,  his  prowess  in 
the  battle  is  also  especially  emphasized. 

In  the  third  part  of  Henry  VI.  Richard  fig 
ures  largely.  He  is  always  the  great  soldier 
of  the  Yorkists — the  foremost  in  fight,  the  most 
bloodthirsty,  and  the  one  who  is  ever  eager  for 
action  and  for  blows.  It  is  he  who  rallies  the 
army  at  Towton  when  both  Warwick  and  Ed 
ward  give  way.  It  is  he  who  rescues  Edward 
when  Warwick  imprisons  him,  and  it  is  Richard 
who  leads  the  van  at  Barnet  and  Tewkesbury. 


36  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

In  this  play  his  character  is  developed,  and  in 
the  great  speech  which  begins : 

"  Ay,  Edward  will  use  women  honorably," 

his  qualities  and  purposes  are  minutely  set 
forth. 

The  play  ends  with  the  great  scene  in  the 
Tower,  which  Gibber  tacked  on  to  his  version 
of  Richard  III.,  and  which  is  therefore  familiar 
to  every  one.  Richard  kills  Henry,  and,  with 
a  cynical  jest  upon  his  lips,  goes  his  way. 

In  the  tragedy  which  bears  his  name  there 
is  no  need  to  trace  him,  for  every  one  knows 
it  well.  It  is  easy  to  sum  up  his  character, 
although  an  infinity  of  touches  have  gone  to 
make  the  finished  picture.  In  his  full  and 
final  development  Shakespeare's  Richard  is  a 
complete  monster,  physically  and  mentally, 
without  a  redeeming  moral  trait,  except  a 
courage  that  knows  no  fear.  He  is  a  great 
soldier,  a  man  of  the  highest  ability — cold,  de 
termined,  relentless.  He  is  subtle,  hypocriti 
cal,  ingenious,  with  an  iron  will  and  an  address 
which  bends  all  things  to  his  purpose.  He  is 
devoured  by  an  ambition  for  the  crown.  In 
this  he  is  the  man  of  one  idea,  and  never  for  a 
moment  loses  sight  of  his  object.  He  has  a 
savage  wit,  a  biting  sarcasm,  a  brutal  frank- 


THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET  37 

ness,  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  smooth,  per 
suasive  tongue  in  time  of  need.  His  most 
marked  trait,  perhaps,  is  the  cynicism  with 
which  he  meets  every  event,  and  which  does 
not  spare  even  himself  or  his  ambition.  There 
is  no  softer  side,  there  are  no  periods  of  re 
morse.  Moments  of  superstitious  fear  occur, 
but  these  have  no  flavor  of  repentance,  and  as 
soon  as  he  can  catch  his  breath  these  shadowy 
terrors  are  trampled  under  foot.  The  quali 
ties  which  are  especially  emphasized  in  Shake 
speare's  Richard  are  savage  cruelty,  indiffer 
ence  to  bloodshed,  ability,  and  a  reckless  fight 
ing  spirit,  which  finally  brings  him  to  his  death. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  facts  of  history,  cold 
and  lifeless,  with  none  of  the  glow  of  genius 
upon  them,  and  see  how  far  the  real  Richard 
was  like  the  Richard  of  the  poet.  At  the  out 
set  be  it  said  that  Shakespeare,  with  his  mar 
vellous  insight  into  human  nature,  could  not 
be  the  mere  reproducer  of  what  Horace  Wai- 
pole  calls  "mob  stories  and  Lancastrian  forg 
eries,"  however  much  he  may  have  followed 
them.  With  the  sure  intuition  of  genius  he 
saw  much  that  he  could  not  find  in  the  books 
he  read,  and  all  this  came  out  in  the  picture. 
For  example,  the  ambition  of  Richard  as 


38  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

Shakespeare  shows  it  was  in  the  main  true. 
He  came  of  a  race  who,  for  generations,  had 
been  occupied  in  getting  and  holding  thrones; 
and  his  whole  life  had  been  absorbed,  and  all 
his  immediate  family  had  been  concerned,  in 
a  struggle  to  seize  and  keep  the  crown.  It  is 
no  wonder  that  to  him,  so  born  and  so  bred, 
the  one  thing  worth  having  in  life  was  the 
royal  crown  of  England.  In  like  manner 
Shakespeare  portrayed  truly  enough  the 
man's  ability,  his  military  capacity,  his  reck 
less  personal  courage,  and  his  strong  personal 
influence  over  every  one  with  whom  he  came 
in  contact.  These  qualities,  admitted  alike 
by  friend  and  foe,  we  may  take  as  undoubted. 
All  that  remains  is  to  see  how  far  the  other 
features  of  Richard's  character,  as  drawn  by 
Shakespeare,  can  be  sustained  by  solid  and 
trustworthy  historical  evidence. 

Shakespeare  relied  for  his  story  upon  the 
account  of  Richard  written  by  Sir  Thomas 
More,  and  the  slightly  varying  versions  of  the 
same  narrative  given  by  Hall  and  Holinshed. 
Sir  Thomas  More's  account  is  now  known, 
and  is  admitted  by  all  recent  authorities  to 
be,  so  far  as  the  incidents  go,  the  work  of 
Morton,  Bishop  of  Ely,  the  one  whom  Rich 
ard  sends  in  the  play  to  get  strawberries  from 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 


39 


his  garden  in  Holborn.  Morton  was  one  of 
Richard's  bitterest  enemies,  and  a  Lancas 
trian.  Even  if  his  narrative  had  been  per 
fectly  clear  and  consistent,  the  attitude  of 
the  author  to  the  subject  would  prevent  its 
being  accepted  on  any  point  adverse  to  Rich 
ard  without  outside  corroboration.  But  it  is 
not  even  consistent  with  itself,  and  can  be 
pulled  to  pieces  by  a  critical  examination  al 
most  without  reference  to  other  authorities. 
Yet  it  was  received  for  a  long  time  as  final, 
and  is  still  adhered  to,  even  by  modern 
writers,  to  a  surprising  degree.  The  story 
gained  its  authority  chiefly  from  the  fact  that 
it  passed  through  the  hands  of  Sir  Thomas 
More,  who  wrote  it  out  in  a  dignified  style, 
and  in  language  which  was  an  immeasurable 
improvement  on  any  English  prose  that  had 
then  appeared.  It  was  this  which  gave  it 
weight  and  acceptance ;  and,  as  Dr.  MahafTy 
says  of  Thucydides,  it  is  astonishing  how  a 
solemn  manner  and  a  noble  style  will  carry 
unsupported  and  unfounded  statements  with 
out  dispute  for  generations.  The  work  was 
left  a  fragment  by  its  reputed  author,  and 
was  not  published  in  his  lifetime.  It  was  not 
an  age  of  historical  research.  Sir  Thomas 
More  made,  and  could  have  made,  no  inves- 


40  THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET 

tigation,  in  the  modern  sense.  He  simply 
took  the  tale  as  it  was  told  him  by  his  pa 
tron,  dressed  it  in  a  fine  style,  and  left  it  to 
posterity,  who,  receiving  it  through  Shake 
speare,  has  found  it  sufficient  to  damn  Richard 
with  for  all  time. 

Rather  more  than  a  hundred  years  elapsed, 
and  then  Richard  found  a  defender  in  Sir 
George  Buck,  an  old  antiquarian  who  died  in 
1623.  After  his  death,  what  he  had  written 
about  Richard  was  published,  and  he  was  set 
down  as  an  untrustworthy  lover  of  paradoxes, 
and  passed  unheeded.  A  century  and  a  half 
went  by,  and  then  came  another  defender,  in 
the  person  of  Horace  Walpole,  with  his  His 
toric  Doubts.  The  author's  wit  and  reputa 
tion  gained  fame  for  the  book,  which  showed 
much  critical  acumen,  and  which  fatally  dis 
credited  the  received  accounts.  But  it  failed 
of  its  purpose,  for  it  was  regarded  rather  as 
the  fanciful  recreation  of  a  literary  epicure 
than  as  the  serious  historic  criticism  which  it 
really  was. 

The  present  century  has  produced  many 
painstaking  and  elaborate  histories  of  Richard 
III.  —  notably  Miss  Halsted's  and  Sharon 
Turner's,  both  favorable  to  the  King,  and 
Jesse's  on  the  other  side.  None  of  these 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  41 

writers,  however,  had  access  to  the  vast  mass 
of  state  rolls  and  records  which  have  lately 
been  brought  to  light,  and  therefore  they 
wrote  at  a  disadvantage.  Since  then  there 
have  been  t\vo  large  works  of  authority 
on  Richard  —  Mr.  Gairdner's  Life,  and  Mr. 
Legge's  Unpopular  King.  Mr.  Gairdner,  a 
specialist  on  the  period,  an  expert,  and  a 
trained  historian,  with  the  new  material  be 
fore  him  and  completely  master  of  it,  has 
done  more  for  Richard  than  any  one  else.  He 
has  adopted  the  adverse  view,  and  has  under 
taken  to  sustain  the  traditional  and  Shake 
spearian  account  by  the  new  evidence  at  his 
command.  As  he  is  perfectly  candid,  his 
failure  to  make  the  new  and  unimpeachable 
testimony  bear  out  the  old  case  is  better  for 
Richard's  cause  than  any  defence.  For,  if  in 
his  skilled  hands  the  best  testimony,  beside 
which  the  traditional  accounts  have  no  stand 
ing,  is  unable  to  sustain  the  Shakespearian 
view,  the  break-down  is  fairly  complete,  and 
the  time  has  arrived  for  the  acceptance  in  his 
tory  of  a  view  of  Richard  and  his  reign  very 
different  from  that  popularly  held. 

Last  of  all  comes  Mr.  Legge,  as  accurate 
and  painstaking  as  Mr.  Gairdner,  with  all  the 
latter's  material  at  his  command,  and  some 


42  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

further  new  and  important  matter  which  he 
himself  has  discovered.  Mr.  Legge  takes 
what  may  be  called  the  modern  and  more  fa 
vorable  view,  and  supports  his  case  strongly, 
although  in  his  eagerness  he  falls  into  the 
very  natural  error  of  going  too  far,  and  of  try 
ing  to  show  that  Richard  was  right  in  all 
points  and  clear  of  blame  in  many  cases  where 
it  is  impossible  to  prove  his  innocence,  and 
where,  in  the  broad  historical  view,  it  is  not 
very  essential  to  the  general  theory  to  show 
anything  of  the  kind. 

Now  let  us  consider  the  facts  in  Richard's 
case,  not  the  various  theories — for  that  would 
occupy  volumes,  and  one  hypothesis  differs 
from  another  not  in  value,  but  in  ingenuity. 
For  the  purpose  of  this  brief  study,  the  undis 
puted  and  reasonably  certain  facts  are  all  we 
can  deal  with.  Indeed,  we  have  no  right  to 
go  beyond  the  story  they  tell  to  reach  a  just 
conclusion. 

Richard  III.  was  the  eleventh  child  and 
eighth  son  of  Richard  Plantagenet,  Duke  of 
York,  and  Cicely,  daughter  of  the  Earl  of 
Westmoreland,  of  the  great  house  of  the  Nev 
illes.  His  father  was  descended  through  the 
female  line  from  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence, 
third  son  of  Edward  III.,  and  thus  held  an 


THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET  43 

unimpeachable  hereditary  title  to  the  throne 
as  against  the  Lancastrians,  who  derived  from 
John  of  Gaunt,  the  fourth  son  of  Edward  III. 

Richard  was  born  at  Fotheringay  Castle,  on 
Monday,  October  2,  1452.  After  his  defeat 
and  death,  it  was  stated  that  his  mother  was 
pregnant  with  him  for  two  years,  that  he  was 
brought  into  the  world  feet  foremost  by  the 
Caesarean  operation  (an  experience  which  his 
mother,  in  a  manner  highly  creditable  to  the 
surgery  of  that  period,  seems  to  have  survived 
for  more  than  thirty  years),  and  that  at  his 
birth  he  had  a  full  set  of  teeth  and  long 
hair  down  to  his  shoulders.  These  are  un 
usual  circumstances  —  all  the  more  unusual 
when  we  reflect  that  no  one  noted  them  at 
the  time,  that  there  is  not  a  scintilla  of  con 
temporary  evidence  to  support  them,  that 
they  were  never  hinted  at  until  forty  years 
after  the  event,  and  that  they  are  absurd  on 
their  face.  Yet  this  silly  fable  has  been  made 
part  of  the  traditional  Richard,  most  of  it  has 
been  gravely  used  by  Shakespeare,  and  his 
torians  have  seriously  discussed  it.  It  is,  of 
course,  only  fit,  historically  speaking,  to  be 
consigned  to  the  dust-heaps  so  much  spoken 
of  by  Carlyle. 

Let  us  deal  with  the  rest  of  the  physical 


44  THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET 

horrors  of  Richard,  and  be  rid  of  them  all 
at  once.  His  deformity  is  a  great  feature 
in  Shakespeare,  and  is  used  with  all  Shake 
speare's  knowledge  of  human  nature  to  ex 
plain  much  of  what  would  be  otherwise  in 
credible.  It  is  the  bitterness  of  the  deformed 
which  makes  Richard  hate  the  world,  which 
hardens  his  cruelty,  and  sharpens  his  already 
keen-edged  ambition  with  the  desire  to  over 
come  the  scorn  of  mankind  for  defects  he 
could  not  help,  by  reaching  a  place  where  he 
could  put  the  world  under  his  feet.  Yet 
there  is  but  little  better  evidence  of  his  de 
formity  than  there  is  of  his  having  been  born 
with  teeth. 

The  cheerful  originator  of  both  legends  was 
one  Rous,  a  monkish  writer  of  Guy's  Cliff. 
He  wrote  a  eulogy  of  Richard  while  Richard 
reigned,  and  an  invective  against  him  after 
Henry  VII.  was  on  the  throne.  This  fact 
alone  disqualifies  Rous  as  an  authority,  and  it 
is  not  easy  to  understand  why  any  one  should 
take  anything  he  wrote  as  by  itself  trust 
worthy  testimony.  Yet  even  Rous,  with  all 
his  worthlessness,  only  said  that  Richard  had 
the  left  shoulder  a  little  lower  than  the  right. 
The  work  of  Morton  and  Sir  Thomas  More 
says  the  right  shoulder  was  lower  than  the 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  45 

left,  and  Polydore  Vergil,  who  was  not  con 
temporary,  says  there  was  an  inequality,  but 
does  not  mention  which  shoulder  was  the 
higher.  This  conflicting  evidence  is  all  there 
is  on  the  subject,  and  it  only  proves  that,  if 
there  were  any  deformity,  it  was  so  trifling 
that  no  one  could  tell  exactly  what  or  where 
it  was. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  call  witnesses  to 
disprove  such  triviality  as  this,  but  it  is  easily 
done,  and  the  refutation  is  complete.  No 
contemporary  other  than  Rous  even  alludes 
to  Richard's  deformity,  and  these  others  who 
are  silent  are  the  only  writers  of  real  author 
ity.  Fabyan,  the  Londoner,  who  must  have 
seen  Richard  often,  and  who  was  a  Lancas 
trian,  says  nothing  of  any  deformity.  The 
Croyland  Chronicler,  a  member  of  Edward 
IV.'s  council,  is  equally  silent,  and  so,  too,  is 
Comines,  although  he  twice  speaks  of  Edward 
as  the  handsomest  prince  he  had  seen,  thus 
showing  that  he  noted  physical  appearance. 
Stowe  said  he  had  talked  with  old  men  who 
had  seen  Richard,  and  they  declared  "that 
he  was  of  bodily  shape  comely  enough,  only 
of  low  stature."  Even  Rous  himself,  in  his 
portrait  of  Richard  indicates  no  deformity. 
The  portraits  indeed — and  there  are  several 


46  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

authentic  examples — show  us  a  man  without 
any  trace,  either  in  expression  or  feature,  of 
bodily  malformation.  The  face  is  a  striking 
one,  strong,  high-bred,  intellectual,  rather 
stern,  perhaps,  and  a  little  hard  in  the  lines, 
but  not  in  the  least  cruel  or  malignant,  and 
with  a  prevailing  air  of  sadness. 

The  only  other  point  to  be  considered  in 
this  connection  occurs  in  the  famous  scene  at 
the  council  board,  where  Richard,  denouncing 
Hastings,  bares  his  arm,  shrunken  and  with 
ered  as  it  always  had  been,  according  to  Mor 
ton,  and  says  that  it  was  due  to  the  sorcery 
of  the  Queen  and  others.  If  it  always  had 
been  withered,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  Rich 
ard  could  have  been  so  dull  as  to  suppose 
that,  even  in  that  superstitious  age,  he  could 
make  any  one  believe  that  his  arm  had  been 
lately  crippled  by  the  machinations  of  the 
Queen  and  Jane  Shore.  The  thing  was  in 
fact  impossible.  He  very  probably  accused 
Hastings  of  witchcraft  or  conspiracy,  or  any 
thing  else,  when  he  wished  to  sweep  him  from 
his  path,  but  he  bared  no  withered  arm,  be 
cause  the  King,  who  at  Bosworth  unhorsed 
Sir  John  Cheney,  cut  down  Sir  William  Bran 
don,  forced  his  way  through  ranks  of  fighting 
men  nearly  to  Richmond  himself,  the  general 


THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET  47 

who  led  the  van  at  Barnet  and  Tewkesbury, 
could  not  have  been  maimed  in  this  way. 
The  man  who  performed  these  feats  of  dar 
ing  and  of  bodily  strength  must  have  been 
quick,  muscular,  and  adroit,  a  vigorous  rider, 
and  skilled  in  the  use  of  weapons.  That  he 
performed  these  precise  feats  is  proved  and 
unquestioned,  and  they  were  not  performed 
by  a  man  with  a  withered,  shrunken,  useless 
arm. 

In  the  way  of  positive  evidence  we  have 
the  statement  of  the  Countess  of  Desmond, 
quoted  by  Hutton,  that  Edward,  who  was  no 
torious  for  his  beauty,  was  the  handsomest 
man  present  on  a  certain  occasion,  and  that 
Richard  was  the  next.  So  we  may  leave  the 
deformity.  There  is  a  little  poor  evidence 
that  it  existed  in  a  very  trivial  form.  There 
is  a  great  deal  of  good  evidence  that  it  did 
not  exist  at  all.  As  a  physical  horror,  an  index 
to  a  black  soul,  which  filled  the  on-looker  with 
repulsion,  the  tradition  of  Richard's  deformity 
is  as  idle  a  myth  as  that  about  his  monstrous 
birth,  and,  like  that,  may  be  dismissed  to  the 
limbo  of  historical  rubbish. 

So  far  as  the  facts  go,  Richard  was  born 
much  like  other  people,  and  did  not  differ 
from  them  in  appearance  by  any  malforma- 


48  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

tion.  We  know  nothing  of  his  early  child 
hood,  except  that  he  was  with  his  mother  in 
England.  During  that  time  his  father  first 
took  up  arms  for  the  redress  of  abuses,  then 
asserted  his  claim  to  the  crown,  was  consti 
tuted  heir  to  the  throne  by  Henry  VI.,  and 
finally  was  killed  in  the  battle  of  Wakefield. 
At  this  time  Richard  was  eight  years  old,  and 
all  the  scenes  of  the  play  in  which  he  appears 
with  his  father  as  a  full-grown  fighting-man  of 
savage  temper  are  necessarily  pure  invention. 
After  Wakefield,  George  and  Richard  were 
sent  by  their  mother  for  safety  to  the  court 
of  Philip  the  Good,  of  Burgundy,  whence  they 
returned  to  find  their  brother,  victor  in  the 
battles  of  St.  Albans  and  Towton,  firmly  seat 
ed  on  the  throne  as  Edward  IV.  George  was 
created  Duke  of  Clarence,  Richard  Duke  of 
Gloucester  and  Admiral  of  the  Sea,  and  large 
estates  were  conferred  on  both.  Richard 
then  appears  to  have  been  placed,  for  training 
and  education,  under  the  guardianship  of  the 
great  Earl  of  Warwick.  By  the  time  he  was 
fifteen  he  was  out  of  tutelage,  and  we  hear  of 
him  as  chief  mourner  at  the  ceremonies  inci 
dent  to  the  reinterment  of  the  bodies  of  the 
Duke  of  York  and  the  Earl  of  Rutland.  A 
little  later  we  hear  of  him  again  with  the 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  49 

army  upon  the  Scottish  border,  and  we  know 
that  he  was  then  leading  an  active  military 
life. 

Meantime  Edward  IV.  made  his  foolish 
marriage  with  Elizabeth  Woodville ;  the 
Woodville,  or  Queen's  faction,  rose  to  pow 
er,  and  a  series  of  quarrels  ensued  with  War 
wick,  which  resulted  in  the  great  Earl  going 
over  to  the  Lancastrians.  With  him  went 
the  Duke  of  Clarence,  moved  thereto  by 
hatred  of  the  Woodvilles  and  by  the  tempta 
tion  of  becoming  heir  to  the  crown  of  Henry 
VI.  The  uprising  which  followed  was  com 
pletely  successful.  Edward  was  dethroned 
and  deserted.  He  fled  the  kingdom  to 
France,  accompanied  by  Richard,  who,  boy  as 
he  was,  remained  faithful  in  the  dark  hour, 
while  Clarence  betrayed  his  brother,  assisted 
in  his  overthrow,  and  plotted  to  get  the 
throne  himself. 

Early  in  the  next  year,  1471,  Edward  and 
Richard  landed  in  England  with  a  mere  hand 
ful  of  men,  got  possession  of  York,  and  thence 
marched  rapidly  on  London,  gathering  strength 
as  they  advanced.  Clarence  now  abandoned 
Warwick  and  came  over  to  his  brother's  side 
— according  to  later  authorities,  induced  to  do 
so  by  the  diplomacy  of  Richard.  London  re- 
4 


50  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

ceived  Edward  favorably,  and  on  Easter  eve 
the  brothers  marched  out  and  met  Warwick 
at  Barnet.  In  the  hard-fought  battle  of  the 
next  day  Richard,  only  nineteen  years  old,  led 
the  van  and  bore  the  brunt  of  the  fighting. 
The  Yorkists  won,  and  Warwick  was  killed. 
Meantime  Queen  Margaret  and  her  son  had 
landed  with  a  powerful  army,  and  less  than  a 
month  later — on  the  4th  of  May — Edward  met 
and  defeated  them  at  Tewkesbury.  Again 
Richard  was  given  the  most  responsible  post. 
Again  he  led  the  van,  and,  storming  the  Duke 
of  Somerset's  intrenched  camp,  won  a  quick 
and  decisive  victory. 

We  have  now  come  to  the  first  of  his  stage 
murders,  in  which  Shakespeare  represents  him 
as  a  leading  participant,  the  killing  of  Prince 
Edward,  son  of  Henry  VI.  Mr.  Gairdner, 
though  he  does  his  best  by  it,  honestly  admits 
that  this  affair  is  "  a  tradition  of  later  times," 
which  is  a  mild  way  of  putting  it.  There  is  no 
contemporary  evidence  to  sustain  the  charge 
that  the  King  and  his  brothers  stabbed  young 
Edward.  The  Croyland  Chronicle,  the  Fleet- 
wood  Chronicle,  Dr.  Warkworth,  and  two  man 
uscript  contemporaries  all  say  Edward  was 
slain  "  in  the  field."  It  is  a  distinct  affirmative 
statement.  Fabyan  later,  and  Lancastrian,  says 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  51 

the  King,  before  whom  Edward  was  brought, 
struck  the  Prince  with  his  gauntlet,  and  that 
the  boy  was  then  slain  by  the  "  Kynge's  ser 
vants."  On  this  statement  the  fable  was  built, 
and  even  this  later  writer  makes  no  shadow 
of  accusation  against  the  royal  brothers,  who 
were  certainly  not  the  "  Kynge's  servants." 
But  the  inferior  and  later  evidence  must  give 
way  to  the  higher.  The  statement  of  the  five 
contemporaries,  who  agree  with  each  other,  of 
whom  one  was  present,  and  another  a  Lancas 
trian,  by  all  rules  of  historical  evidence  must 
be  accepted  as  final.  They  say  Edward  was 
slain  in  the  field,  and  give  no  hint  that  he  was 
ever  brought  before  the  King  at  all.  The 
whole  scene  is  an  invention,  but  even  if  it  were 
not,  there  is  not  a  suggestion,  even  in  the  later 
writer,  with  whom  the  tale  originated,  that 
Richard  had  anything  to  do  with  the  killing 
of  the  young  Prince. 

We  now  come  to  the  second  stage  murder — 
that  of  Henry  VI. — which  Richard  in  the  play 
commits  single-handed.  Henry  VI.  was  con 
fined  in  the  Tower,  and,  after  the  battle  of 
Tewkesbury,  the  bastard  Falconbridge,  who 
had  command  of  the  fleet,  came  to  London 
to  liberate  him  and  renew  the  struggle.  Fal 
conbridge  was  repulsed  by  the  citizens  and 


52  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

retired  to  Kent,  while  Edward  marched  rap 
idly  to  London  on  hearing  the  news  of  the 
revolt.  He  arrived  there  May  2ist,  and  passed 
that  night  with  his  court  in  the  Tower,  where 
were  held  a  cabinet  council  and  a  great  ban 
quet.  The  next  day  Richard  set  out  for  Can 
terbury  in  pursuit  of  Falconbridge.  On  the 
night  of  May  2ist,  while  all  these  affairs  of 
business  and  pleasure  were  in  progress,  Hen 
ry  VI.  died,  or  was  killed,  in  his  neighbor 
ing  prison.  The  Fleetwood  Chronicle,  Yorkist, 
says  he  died  of  "  pure  displeasure  and  melan 
choly"  at  the  disaster  which  had  befallen  his 
family.  As  he  was  nearly,  if  not  quite,  imbe 
cile,  this  story  seems  unlikely  on  its  face.  The 
Croyland  Chronicle  says  that  King  Henry  was 
found  lifeless,  and  that  the  "  doer  thereof  de 
serves  the  name  of  tyrant,"  which,  though 
vague,  can  fairly  point  at  only  one  person, 
the  King,  Edward  IV.  Dr.  Warkworth  says 
that  Henry  was  put  to  death,  the  "  Duke  of 
Gloucester  and  many  others  being  then  at  the 
Tower."  Fabyan  simply  says  the  King  "  was 
stykked  with  a  dagger."  The  later  writers  all 
tell  different  stories,  varying  from  Sir  Thomas 
More,  who,  of  course,  says  that  Richard  killed 
Henry  with  his  own  hand,  to  Habington,  who 
blackens  Richard  in  every  possible  way,  but 


THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET  53 

on    this   occasion    defends    him    and    charges 

o 

the  murder  direct  to  Edward  and  his  cabinet 
council. 

That  Henry  was  murdered  there  can  be  no 
reasonable  doubt.  The  rising  of  Falconbridgc 
had  sealed  his  fate,  and  had  shown  that,  imbe 
cile  though  he  was,  he  was  still  a  source  of 
danger.  How  he  was  killed  no  one  but  those 
directly  concerned  knew,  and  they  did  not  tell. 
The  manner  of  his  death  was  unknown,  but 
there  is  no  evidence  whatever  of  the  first  class 
to  fix.the  actual  killing  on  Richard  and  a  good 
deal  to  fasten  the  responsibility  on  the  King. 
Apart  from  the  evidence,  it  is  absurd  to  suppose 
that  the  King's  brother  should  have  played 
the  part  of  an  executioner.  The  Tower  was 
swarming  with  the  victorious  Yorkists — sol 
diers  of  desperate  character,  inured  to  blood 
shed —  and  the  King's  brother-in-law,  Earl 
Rivers,  was  in  command.  Henry  was  a  dan 
ger,  and  in  the  way,  and  it  was  not  an  age  of 
scruples.  But  while  generally  for  the  interests 
of  the  House  of  York  to  be  rid  of  him,  it  was 
the  especial  interest  of  Edward,  and  not  of 
Richard,  who  was  then  too  remote  from  the 
throne  to  be  affected  at  all  by  Henry's  exist 
ence.  The  natural  explanation  is  the  one  best 
supported  by  such  evidence  as  is  worth  con- 


54  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

sidering,  that  Henry  was  put  to  death  by  Ed 
ward's  order  or  with  his  sanction.  That  Rich 
ard  approved  the  step  it  is  reasonable  to  sup 
pose.  Most  persons  appear  to  have  accepted 
it  as  a  painful  but  necessary  political  action, 
for  politics  at  that  time  were  of  that  pleasant 
cast.  But  that  Richard  was  more  responsible 
than  the  rest  of  his  family,  there  is  no  reason 
to  believe ;  and  that  he  himself  went  sword  in 
hand  and  stabbed  Henry  is  not  sustained  by 
any  good  evidence,  nor  can  it  be  accepted  by 
any  fair  rules  of  reasoning. 

In  any  event,  the  House  of  York  was  now 
firmly  established,  and  the  last  Lancastrian  of 
the  legitimate  line  was  gone.  For  twelve  years 
Edward  was  to  rule  England  undisturbed. 
There  is  no  need  here  to  give  any  account 
of  his  reign.  It  is  enough  simply  to  bring  to 
gether  the  known  facts  about  Richard  during 
that  period.  In  the  first  hours  of  triumph  he 
received  his  share  of  the  spoils,  made  larger  by 
the  fidelity  which  he  had  shown  when  Clarence 
played  Edward  false.  He  was  appointed  Lord 
Chamberlain  and  steward  of  the  Duchy  of  Lan 
caster,  and  received  the  forfeited  estates  of 
Oxford,  a  portion  of  Warwick's,  and  the  whole 
of  divers  others.  He  also  received  the  thanks 
of  Parliament,  which  indicates  that  he  was 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  55 

popular.  Soon  after  this  began  the  contest 
about  his  marriage  with  Anne  Neville.  The 
famous  wooing  scene  in  Shakespeare  and  his 
treatment  of  Richard's  marital  relations  arc- 
pure  invention.  At  the  time  of  the  Shake 
spearian  wooing,  which  must  have  been  May 
22,  1471,  Richard  was  in  Kent  quelling  an  in 
surrection,  and  Anne,  who  had  not  yet  com 
pleted  her  fourteenth  year,  was  a  prisoner  in 
the  Tower,  having  been  captured  at  Tewkcs- 
bury  with  Queen  Margaret.  She  was  never 
married  to  Prince  Edward,  and  is  spoken  of 
as  "puella"  in  the  Croyland  Chronicle.  It  is 
probable  that  she  was  betrothed  to  the  Lan 
castrian  Prince,  although  there  are  doubts  even 
on  this  point. 

The  historic  facts  are  that  Richard  and  Anne 
were  cousins,  and  had  been  brought  up  to 
gether,  and  that  after  the  final  settlement  of 
Edward  upon  the  throne  Richard  sought  her 
in  marriage.  Anne,  however,  was  the  sister 
and  co-heiress  of  Isabella,  daughter  of  the  great 
Earl  of  Warwick  and  wife  of  Clarence.  The 
Duke  of  Clarence  wished  to  get  all  the  War 
wick  estates,  and,  having  no  mind  to  divide 
them  with  his  brother,  abducted  Anne  and 
hid  her  in  London  in  the  disguise  of  a  kitchen- 
maid.  Richard  discovered  her,  took  her  away, 


56  THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET 

with  her  own  apparent  good-will,  and  put  her 
in  sanctuary.  Then  came  a  fierce  dispute  be 
tween  the  brothers,  who  argued  the  case  before 
the  council,  and  it  was  even  feared  that  they 
would  take  up  arms.  Finally  the  decision  went 
in  Richard's  favor.  The  King  sustained  him. 
He  got  half  of  the  Warwick  estates,  and  mar 
ried  Anne,  probably  in  1473.  There  is  no  evi 
dence  to  show  that  they  lived  together  other 
wise  than  happily,  or  that  Richard  ever  neg 
lected  her.  On  the  contrary,  they  were  con 
stantly  together.  She  bore  him  children,  one 
of  whom  became  Prince  of  Wales,  and  the  in 
timation  of  Shakespeare  that  Richard  had  a 
hand  in  her  death  is  sustained  by  no  evidence 
worth  considering. 

'  The  four  years  succeeding  the  battle  of 
Tewkesbury,  Richard,  who  was  Warden  of 
the  Marches  and  High  Constable,  spent  al 
most  entirely  on  the  northern  borders.  It 
was  a  difficult  position,  for  there  was  much 
disaffection  in  that  region.  Richard  governed 
wisely  and  well,  and  proved  himself  a  strong 
administrator.  He  achieved  a  popularity  in 
the  north  which  never  failed  him,  and  even 
after  his  death  the  people  there  defended  his 
memory. 

In    1475    Edward,  after  burdening  his  sub- 


THE   LAST    PLANTAGENET  57 

jccts  with  terrible  taxation,  raised  a  fine  army 
and  invaded  France.  Once  there,  instead  of 
fighting  and  winning,  as  he  undoubtedly 
could  have  done,  he  came  to  a  treaty  with 
Louis,  and  for  money  down  and  an  assured 
tribute,  withdrew.  All  the  great  nobles  and 
courtiers  about  him  were  bribed  largely  and 
openly,  and  gave  their  assent.  Richard  alone 
stood  out,  refused  all  bribes,  and  denounced 
the  treaty  as  shameful.  His  attitude  was  as 
well  known  as  it  was  exceptional,  and  estab 
lished  his  strength  and  popularity  with  the 
people  of  England,  who,  wrung  with  taxation 
for  a  war,  resented  bitterly  the  conclusion  of 
a  sordid  peace. 

Soon  after  the  King's  return  from  France 
the  trouble  with  Clarence  culminated.  Ed 
ward  had  never  been  on  good  terms  with  his 
brother  George  since  the  latter's  double 
treachery  to  himself  and  Warwick.  He 
treated  him  coldly,  and  discriminated  against 
him  in  exemptions  and  gifts.  Clarence 
sulked  and  withdrew  from  court.  He  was 
rich  and  popular,  he  began  to  talk  about  the 
bastardy  of  Edward's  children,  in  which  case 
he  was  the  next  heir  to  the  throne  he  had  al 
ready  tried  to  reach,  and  finally,  on  the  death 
of  his  wife,  he  set  about  to  marry  the  daugh- 


58  THE   LAST    PLANTAGENET 

ter  of  Charles  of  Burgundy.  In  a  word,  he 
became  dangerous.  He  was  arrested,  tried 
publicly,  and  condemned.  The  King  gave 
the  order  for  his  death,  urged  thereto  by  the 
Woodville  faction,  but  to  save  a  public  execu 
tion  the  Duke  was  assassinated  in  the  Tower 
in  1478.  There  is  not  only  no  proof,  or  even 
hint  of  proof,  that  Richard  had  anything  to 
do  with  it,  but  the  only  fact  we  know  is  that 
Richard  endeavored  to  prevent  extreme 
measures.  Even  Sir  Thomas  More  admits 
that  Richard's  guilt  was  doubtful,  and  merely 
surmises  that  he  really  desired  Clarence's 
death  while  he  openly  opposed  it.  Mr.  Gaird- 
ner  says  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  original 
sources  (which  clearly  prove  Clarence's  death 
to  have  been  wholly  of  the  King's  doing)  to 
connect  Richard  with  the  crime.  Yet  none 
the  less,  and  this  is  a  fair  example  of  the 
way  Richard  has  been  treated,  he  endeav 
ors  to  throw  suspicion  on  him  by  showing 
that  he  received  some  advantages  from  Clar 
ence's  death  in  the  way  of  an  estate,  and 
he  hints  that  Richard's  religious  foundations 
at  that  period  might  have  been  works  of 
repentance  for  his  brother's  execution.  The 
plain  truth,  on  all  existing  evidence,  is  that 
Richard  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  death 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  59 

of  Clarence,  except  to  try  vainly  to  pre 
vent  it. 

The  year  before  Clarence's  assassination 
there  were  indications  of  difficulties  with 
Scotland,  which  were  fomented  by  France, 
and  which  culminated  in  war  in  1481.  Rich 
ard,  as  Lieutenant-General  in  the  north,  was  in 
command  of  the  army.  He  took  the  town  of 
Berwick,  marched  on  Edinburgh,  and  entered 
the  city,  making  a  treaty  or  arrangement 
with  the  Lords  in  control  which  satisfied  the 
English  claims.  He  then  marched  back  to 
the  borders,  besieged  and  took  the  castle  of 
Berwick,  and  thus  restored  to  England  the 
powerful  fortress  which  Margaret  and  the 
Lancastrians  had  surrended  to  Scotland  twen 
ty-one  years  before.  Throughout  he  showed 
the  military  ability  and  the  administrative  ca 
pacity  for  which  he  was  always  distinguished, 
and  he  was  thanked  again  for  his  services  by 
Parliament. 

The  following  year,  on  April  9,  1483,  Ed 
ward  IV.,  worn  out  by  dissipation,  died  of  a 
surfeit.  Long  years  after,  Tudor  historians, 
who  felt  it  necessary  to  attribute  all  the  cur 
rent  mortality  of  that  period  to  one  source, 
insinuated  a  suspicion  that  Richard,  who  had 
not  been  in  London  for  some  time,  and  who 


60  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

was  then  at  his  government  in  the  north,  was 
in  some  way  responsible  for  the  King's  death. 
The  story  is  so  silly  that  it  is  not  worth  con 
sidering,  and  is  abandoned  even  by  those 
writers  who  take  the  traditional  view  of  Rich 
ard.  What  concerns  us  here  is  to  trace  Rich 
ard's  subsequent  course. 

Edward  had  endeavored  to  bring  about 
some  arrangement  before  his  death  which 
should  prevent  the  war  of  factions  and  secure 
the  peaceful  accession  of  his  son,  Edward  V., 
then  in  his  thirteenth  year.  It  was  all  in  vain. 
The  breath  was  hardly  out  of  his  body  before 
the  struggle  was  begun  by  the  Woodville  fac 
tion  to  get  possession  of  the  person  of  the 
young  King  and  thereby  of  the  government. 
The  Marquis  of  Dorset,  young  Edward's  half- 
brother,  seized  the  treasury,  and  began  illegal 
ly  to  equip  a  navy.  The  others  undertook  to 
raise  an  army  to  escort  the  King  from  Lud- 
low,  and  were  only  prevented  from  doing  so, 
and  compelled  to  cut  the  retinue  down  to  two 
thousand  men,  by  the  efforts  of  Lord  Hast 
ings,  one  of  the  most  powerful  nobles  in  the 
country,  and  a  bitter  enemy  of  the  Woodville 
faction.  All  these  movements  were  distinctly 
treasonable,  for  Richard  had  been  constituted 
by  the  will  of  Edward  IV.  guardian  of  his 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  6 1 

son  and  Protector  of  the  realm.  The  contest, 
therefore,  at  the  start,  was  between  the  lawful 
authority  and  a  powerful  faction  headed  by 
the  Queen. 

Richard,  on  his  side,  was  as  prompt  as  his 
adversaries.  With  a  small  following,  and  ac 
companied  by  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  he 
started  for  London,  and  succeeded  in  inter 
cepting  the  Prince's  retinue  at  Northampton, 
the  Prince  himself  having  been  hurried  on  to 
Stony  Stratford.  Briefly  stated,  Richard  ar 
rested  Earl  Rivers  and  Lord  Grey,  the  King's 
uncle  and  half-brother,  and  Sir  Thomas  Vaugh- 
an,  sent  them  to  prison  at  Pontefract  Castle, 
and  then  went  on  to  Stony  Stratford.  Masters 
of  the  young  King's  person,  Richard  and  Buck 
ingham,  then  marched  to  London  and  estab 
lished  their  charge  in  the  Tower,  which,  it 
should  be  remembered,  was  at  that  period  a 
palace  quite  as  much  as  a  prison.  Meantime 
the  Queen,  the  rising  which  she  had  project 
ed  having  failed,  had  taken  sanctuary  with 
her  daughter  and  her  second  son,  the  Duke 
of  York,  at  Westminster.  Then  followed  six 
weeks  of  plotting  and  intrigue.  The  Wood- 
ville  faction  held  one  council  in  the  Tower, 
Richard  another  in  Crosby  Place.  Lord  Hast 
ings,  who  had  helped  Richard  against  the 


62  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

Woodvilles,  had  no  mind  to  sustain  him  in 
power  as  Protector — still  less  as  King — and 
Richard,  acting  with  the  suddenness  and  de 
termination  which  were  part  of  his  character, 
arrested  Hastings  for  high  treason  at  a  council 
meeting,  and  had  him  executed,  without  even 
a  form  of  trial,  that  very  afternoon.  At  the 
same  time,  Rivers,  Vaughan,  and  Grey,  after 
due  trial,  were  executed  at  Pontefract. 

With  the  death  of  Hastings,  Richard  had 
swept  his  last  powerful  opponent  from  his  path 
and  was  master  of  the  situation.  From  this 
point  he  moved  rapidly  to  the  throne,  which 
we  cannot  doubt  he  had  intended  to  seize 
from  the  moment  he  heard  of  his  brother's 
death.  Into  the  management  by  which  it  was 
brought  about,  it  is  not  necessary  to  enter. 
He  based  his  claim  on  the  bastardy  of  Ed 
ward's  children,  owing  to  the  latter's  precon 
tract  with  Lady  Eleanor  Butler.  This,  although 
worthless  in  point  of  mere  justice  and  accord 
ing  to  the  ideas  of  the  present  day,  was  at  that 
period  a  perfectly  good  technical  ground,  and 
Richard  produced  direct  evidence  amply  suffi 
cient  for  his  purpose.  His  case  was  consid 
ered  so  strong  that,  after  his  death,  Henry 
VII.  ordered  all  the  petitions  of  the  city  of 
London,  asking  Richard  to  be  King,  and  set- 


THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET  63 

ting  forth  the  reasons  for  the  bastardy  of  his 
nephews,  to  be  destroyed.  The  accidental 
preservation  of  one  or  two  of  these  petitions 
has  alone  enabled  us  to  know  on  what  grounds 
Richard  made  his  claims.  By  these  it  is  also 
proved  that  the  later  historians  falsified  them 
in  saying  that  they  set  forth  a  precontract 
between  Edward  and  his  mistress,  Elizabeth 
Lucy,  as  given  by  Shakespeare,  which  was  idle 
on  its  face,  and  in  suppressing  the  real  precon 
tract  with  Lady  Eleanor  Butler,  which  was 
witnessed  by  Stillington,  Bishop  of  Bath. 
Richard  was  unscrupulous,  but  he  was  not 
fatuous,  and  he  did  not  attempt  to  impose 
on  the  public  so  feeble  a  story  of  the  bastardy 
as  that  set  forth  by  Shakespeare. 

The  city  of  London  petitioned  him  to  as 
sume  the  crown.  After  a  feigned  declination 
he  consented.  The  council  confirmed  the  ac 
tion.  Parliament,  which  had  been  summoned, 
and  then,  by  a  writ  of  supersedeas — issued 
probably  by  the  Woodville  faction  —  post 
poned,  met,  nevertheless,  and  confirmed  Rich 
ard's  title,  which  was  later  confirmed  again  by 
a  Parliament  formally  brought  together.  If 
the  bastardy  of  Edward's  children  is  not  ad 
mitted,  Richard,  according  to  the  ideas  of  that 
day,  was,  like  Henry  IV.  and  Henry  VII.,  a 


64  THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET 

usurper.  According  to  modern  theories,  he 
was  a  constitutionally  chosen  King,  with  the 
election  of  lords,  commons,  council,  and  city, 
as  much  so  as  any  ruler  who  ever  sat  upon  the 
throne. 

He  secured  the  throne  with  far  less  blood 
shed  than  marked  any  of  the  changes  of  the 
crown  from  the  accession  of  Henry  VI.  to  that 
of  Henry  VIII.  He  executed  three  noblemen 
representing  the  Woodville  faction  at  Ponte- 
fract,  and  one,  Lord  Hastings,  in  London. 
His  action  in  regard  to  the  Woodvilles  was 
popular,  and  is  so  admitted  by  all  historians,  for 
that  faction  was  hated  as  oppressive  and  lux 
urious.  Hastings's  death  was  regretted,  but 
was  regarded  as  a  political  necessity.  Richard's 
management  of  the  city  and  of  his  own  claim 
to  the  throne  was  perfectly  open,  and  he  be 
came  King  by  the  assent  of  every  branch  of  the 
government  and  of  the  popular  voice.  What 
ever  his  purposes — and  they  were  no  doubt 
as  ambitious  and  selfish  as  his  methods  were 
violent  and  unscrupulous — it  could  not  have 
been  otherwise,  for  Richard  did  not  have  the 
usual  weapon  of  usurpers,  an  army.  It  was 
reported  that  his  forces  from  the  north  were 
coming,  twenty  thousand  strong,  to  his  sup 
port.  These  troops  did  not  arrive  until  after 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  65 

Richard  had  assumed  the  crown,  been  pro 
claimed  and  accepted  King,  and  taken  the 
royal  oath.  When  they  came,  there  were 
only  four  or  five  thousand,  according  to  Fa- 
byan,  raw  levies  in  rusty  armor  and  unfit 
really  for  service.  They  remained  until  after 
the  coronation,  but  played  no  part,  and  were 
not  considered  as  of  any  importance  by  the 
Londoners. 

Richard,  therefore,  reached  the  crown  in 
eight  weeks,  with  no  army  at  his  back,  and 
but  trifling  opposition.  He  could  have  ef 
fected  this  on  only  one  condition.  The  com 
munity  wanted  him.  If  they  had  not,  he 
would  have  been  helpless  and  defeated  at  the 
start.  It  was  natural  enough,  if  we  look  at  it 
without  traditional  prejudice.  Richard  was 
recognized  as  the  ablest  man  in  the  kingdom, 
both  as  general  and  administrator.  He  had 
opposed  the  French  peace,  conquered  Scot 
land,  and  brought  peace  to  the  borders.  He 
was  a  strong  man,  capable  of  rule.  On  the 
other  side  was  a  boy  King  whose  accession 
meant  a  period  of  violence  and  disorder  as 
factions  struggled  for  control,  and  that  worst 
of  all  tyrannies,  the  rule  of  contending  nobles. 
Richard  offered  the  best  chance  of  law,  order, 
and  strong  government,  and  that  is  the  sole 

5 


66  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

reason  that  he  was  able  to  carry  his  adroit 
schemes  to  such  quick  success. 

The  coronation  took  place  almost  immedi 
ately,  on  July  6th,  and  was  performed  with 
great  splendor.  The  new  King  signalized  his 
accession  by  a  general  pardon,  extending  his 
clemency  even  to  some  of  the  most  bitter 
enemies  of  himself  and  his  house.  He  then 
set  out  on  a  progress  through  the  kingdom. 
Everywhere  he  was  received  with  acclama 
tion,  and  many  of  the  towns  voluntarily  of 
fered  him  gifts  of  money  to  defray  the  ex 
penses  of  his  journey,  which  is  the  strongest 
proof  of  his  popularity.  Such  offers  were  rare 
at  that  period,  but  Richard  declined  them  all. 
Every  sign  that  we  can  now  discover  points 
to  the  fact  that  he  himself  was  very  popular, 
and  that  among  the  masses  of  the  people  his 
accession  to  the  throne  was  regarded  as  the 
best  thing  that  could  have  happened. 

While  he  was  on  this  progress  the  report 
went  out  that  his  nephews,  the  princes,  had 
died  by  foul  means  in  the  Tower.  Thus  we 
come  to  the  deed  which  has  formed  the  dark1 
est  stain  on  Richard's  character,  and  which 
has  done  more  to  damn  him  with  posterity 
than  all  else.  Yet,  curiously  enough,  we 
know  less  about  it  and  have  less  evidence 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  67 

concerning  it  than  any  other  event  in  his  ca 
reer.  The  narrative  of  Sir  Thomas  More, 
which  has  always  been  the  accepted  version, 
carries  in  itself  its  own  refutation.  No  out 
side  evidence  is  needed.  Careful  criticism  of 
the  story,  as  More  or  Morton  tells  it,  shows  it 
to  be  full  of  contradictions  and  impossibili 
ties.  It  falls  to  pieces  on  examination.  Let 
us  put  together  what  we  actually  know.  The 
young  King,  Edward  V.,  went  to  the  Tower  as 
soon  as  he  arrived  in  London,  in  the  spring  of 
1483.  Late  in  June,  just  before  Richard  be 
came  King,  the  Queen -mother  gave  up  the 
second  boy,  the  Duke  of  York,  and  he  like 
wise  went  to  the  Tower.  Early  in  the  follow 
ing  autumn  it  was  rumored  that  the  royal 
children  were  dead.  Two  of  the  contempo 
rary  chroniclers  are  entirely  silent  on  the  sub 
ject.  The  third  merely  mentions  the  report 
of  their  death.  Nothing  was  known  clearly 
at  that  time  beyond  the  fact  that  a  rumor  to 
that  effect  was  abroad.  Richard  preserved 
absolute  silence.  He  never  denied  the  ru 
mor.  He  never  declared  the  princes  dead  as 
a  means  of  perfecting  his  title.  After  his 
death  he  was  attainted,  and  in  the  bill  of  at 
tainder  no  mention  is  made  of  the  murder  of 
the  princes.  His  bitterest  enemies  did  not 


68  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

then  number  that  among  his  crimes.  Not 
until  seventeen  years  after  Richard's  death, 
not  until  Perkin  Warbeck  had  attempted  to 
personate  the  Duke  of  York,  and  it  had  be 
come  the  direct  interest  of  Henry  VII.  to 
prove  the  death  of  the  princes,  did  anything 
like  a  definite  account  of  their  taking  off  ap 
pear.  It  was  then  said  that  Tyrrel  and  Digh- 
ton  had  confessed  to  smothering  the  two  boys 
in  the  Tower. 

Sir  James  Tyrrel,  who  had  been  Master  of 
the  Horse  under  Edward  IV.  and  Richard, 
and  subsequently  trusted  and  advanced  by 
Henry  VII.,  was  then  in  prison  for  complicity 
in  aiding  the  Duke  of  Suffolk,  for  which  he 
was  subsequently  executed.  Dighton,  also  in 
prison,  was  released  and  rewarded  by  Henry 
VII.,  because  "his  statement  pleased  him." 
What  they  really  confessed,  if  anything,  is  un 
known,  for  all  we  have  is  what  the  King 
"gave  out";  and  what  the  King  "  gave  out" 
we  know  only  by  hearsay  and  report.  This 
sums  up  all  the  meagre  evidence  in  regard  to 
the  death  of  the  princes ;  for  the  bones  dug 
up  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  and  honored 
by  royal  burial,  are  worthless  as  testimony. 
They  might  have  been  the  bones  of  any  one, 
even  of  an  ape,  whose  skeleton,  found  in  a  tur- 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  69 

ret,  passed  for  a  time  as  that  of  Edward  V., 
and  the  place  where  they  were  found  does 
not  agree  with  the  accepted  story,  or  indeed 
any  other. 

All  that  we  actually  know,  therefore,  is 
that  the  princes  went  into  the  Tower  in  the 
summer  of  1483,  and  though  it  was  generally 
believed,  by  their  mother  among  others,  that 
one  escaped,  there  is  no  proof  that  they  were 
ever  seen  again  alive  outside  the  Tower  walls. 
We  also  know  that  it  was  rumored  in  the 
autumn  of  1483  that  they  had  been  murdered, 
and  there  knowledge  stops.  They  may  have 
been  murdered  by  Richard's  order,  or  have 
died,  being  delicate  boys,  of  neglect  and  con 
finement.  They  may  have  survived  Richard, 
and  died,  or  been  murdered,  under  Henry, 
whose  interest  in  having  them  dead  was 
greater  than  Richard's,  for  Henry  could  not, 
without  destroying  his  wife's  title,  admit  their 
bastardy.  One  conjecture,  so  far  as  proof 
and  contemporary  evidence  go,  is  just  as 
good  and  almost  as  well  supported  as  anoth 
er.  We  can  only  fall  back  on  general  reason 
ing.  There  is  no  proof  that  they  survived 
Richard  ;  the  rumor  of  their  death  started  in 
his  time,  and  it  was  to  his  interest  to  have 
them  out  of  the  way,  as  movements  were  on 


70  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

foot  among  the  nobles  to  assert  Edward  V.'s 
claim  to  the  crown.  The  fairest  inference  is 
that  they  were  put  to  death  by  Richard's 
order,  and,  in  the  darkness  that  covers  the 
whole  business,  an  inference  is  all  we  have. 
The  murder  of  the  princes  is  the  blackest 
crime  charged  to  Richard,  and  although  direct 
proof  of  it  seems  impossible,  he  cannot  be  re 
lieved  from  it  unless  new  and  positive  evi 
dence  to  the  contrary  is  discovered. 

At  the  time  when  this  sinister  rumor  start 
ed,  Richard  was  confronted  with  a  much  more 
practical  danger.  The  Duke  of  Buckingham, 
whom  Richard  had  declined  to  make  too 
powerful,  went  into  open  rebellion,  influenced 
largely  by  Morton,  Bishop  of  Ely,  who  had 
been  committed  to  the  Duke's  charge  as  a 
prisoner.  This  revolt  was  a  signal  for  like 
movements  by  Lancastrians,  the  remnants  of 
the  Woodvilles,  and  the  Earl  of  Richmond. 
It  was  a  formidable  situation  for  a  King 
scarcely  three  months  on  the  throne.  Rich 
ard  met  it  with  his  accustomed  courage  and 
capacity.  He  raised  forces,  moved  with  his 
usual  quickness,  and  struck  hard.  The  ris 
ings  in  the  south  were  crushed,  Richmond 
was  repulsed  from  the  coast,  while  by  great 
floods  in  the  west  Buckingham's  army  was 


THE   LAST   PLANTAGENET  71 

broken  and  dispersed,  and  he  himself  made  a 
prisoner,  and  promptly  and  justly  executed  for 
high  treason. 

This  display  of  power  brought  quiet  and 
gave  Richard  opportunity  to  enter  on  the 
public  work  of  his  short  reign.  It  is  only  pos 
sible  here  to  give  a  summary  of  what  he  ac 
complished,  but  that  is  sufficient  to  show,  not 
only  his  wisdom  and  ability,  but  that  he  had 
a  strong,  new  policy,  which  ran  consistently 
through  every  act.  It  was  this  policy,  vigor 
ously  carried  out,  which  makes  good  Richard's 
place  as  the  harbinger  of  the  new  epoch, 
which  vindicates  his  ability  as  a  statesman, 
and  which  at  the  same  time  wrought  his  de 
struction. 

In  the  first  place,  he  had  two  Parliaments  in 
his  short  reign.  The  Plantagenets  as  a  race 
were  not  afraid  of  Parliament,  and  in  their 
struggles  for  power  they  were  fond  of  appeal 
ing  to  the  Commons  and  seeking  a  parliamen 
tary  title.  There  was  nothing  of  the  huckster 
ing  spirit  which  the  Tudors  showed,  and  still 
less  of  the  quarrelsome  timidity  and  bad  faith 
of  the  Stuarts  in  the  relations  of  the  Plantag 
enets  to  their  Parliaments.  They  were  quite 
ready  to  fight  with  or  domineer  over  a  Parlia 
ment,  but  they  were  equally  ready  to  meet 


f2  THE   LAST   PLANTAGENET 

with  it  and  seek  its  assistance.  Richard  was 
conspicuous  for  this,  and  he  was  equally  marked 
in  his  regard  for  the  courts.  Almost  his  first 
act  was  to  take  his  seat  with  the  judges  on  the 
King's  Bench,  and  he  devoted  himself  to  re 
establishing  and  strengthening  the  administra 
tion  of  justice  between  man  and  man,  and  to 
the  enforcement  of  the  laws  for  the  protection 
of  life  and  property.  He  abolished  Benevo 
lences,  the  most  oppressive  form  of  wringing 
money  from  individuals  in  the  form  of  gifts. 
It  was  a  cruel  system,  harsh,  unequal,  and  in 
determinate  in  the  amounts  demanded.  For 
it  he  substituted,  or  rather  relied  on,  taxation, 
which,  if  burdensome,  was  at  least  determinate 
in  amount,  and  was  imposed  with  some  regard 
to  equality  and  justice. 

He  prohibited  the  wearing  of  any  badges  or 
cognizances  but  those  of  the  King.  This  was 
a  fatal  blow  to  the  private  armies  of  the  great 
nobles,  and  meant  the  end  of  private  wars  and 
a  check  upon  constant  insurrection.  It  carried 
in  principle  the  overthrow  of  the  feudal  system 
and  the  substitution  of  one  responsible  king 
for  a  multitude  of  irresponsible  and  petty  ty 
rants. 

He  gave  his  protection  and  patronage  to  the 
new  learning.  He  was  the  friend  of  Caxton 


THE   LAST   PLANTAGENET  73 

and  the  encourager  of  printing,  and  ordered 
that  no  obstacle  should  be  placed  in  the  way 
of  the  introduction  of  books,  and  of  all  that 
could  promote  the  new  art  in  the  kingdom. 
He  devised  a  method  of  carrying  despatches 
and  news,  in  which  may  be  traced  the  first 
germ  of  the  letter  post.  He  gave  liberally  to 
the  Church,  after  the  fashion  of  his  time;  but, 
superstitious  as  he  was,  he  curbed  the  over 
grown  power  of  the  clergy,  and  sought  to  check 
some  of  the  gross  abuses  of  the  day  by  bring 
ing  them  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  secular 
courts.  All  this,  in  addition  to  extensive  rela 
tions  with  foreign  powers  and  several  progresses 
through  the  kingdom,  represents  a  great  work 
for  two  troubled  years,  work  that  only  a  vigor 
ous  mind,  filled  with  new  and  definite  ideas, 
could  have  conceived. 

At  the  close  of  two  years  the  end  came. 
Richmond  landed  with  a  mercenary  force,  and, 
gathering  some  of  the  ever-ready  and  discon 
tented  nobles,  marched  towards  London.  Rich 
ard  rapidly  raised  a  much  more  powerful  army 
and  hastened  to  oppose  him.  They  met  at 
Bosworth.  The  royal  forces  were  made  up  on 
the  old  feudal  system  of  bands  led  by  nobles, 
and  these  bands  looked  for  command  to 
their  immediate  chiefs  and  not  to  the  King. 


74  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

If  the  leaders  failed  or  were  false  their  troops 
went  with  them,  and  this  was  precisely  what 
happened  at  Bosworth.  There  was  really 
hardly  any  battle  at  all,  as  we  can  see  from 
the  trivial  loss  of  the  invaders.  The  Stanleys, 
commanding  two  large  bodies  of  troops,  de 
serted  the  King's  standard  almost  immedi 
ately,  and  then  turned  upon  the  army  they 
had  betrayed.  The  royal  forces  were  thrown, 
of  course,  into  panic  and  confusion.  Richard 
was  urged  to  leave  the  field.  He  had  ample 
time  and  opportunity  to  escape,  but  he  refused. 
u  I  will  die  as  I  have  lived,"  he  said,  "  King 
of  England."  The  wild  fighting  spirit  of  the 
Plantagenets  was  roused.  Putting  himself  at 
the  head  of  a  handful  of  faithful  followers,  he 
charged  straight  into  the  enemy's  lines,  making 
for  Richmond  himself.  He  unhorsed  Sir  John 
Cheney,  a  knight  of  gigantic  stature.  He  cut 
down  Sir  William  Brandon,  Richmond's  stand 
ard-bearer,  and  mortally  wounded  him.  His 
desperate  valor  brought  him  nearly  to  his  rival, 
and  then  the  men  of  Stanley  closed  in  around 
him  and  he  was  beaten  to  the  earth  and  killed 
with  a  hundred  blows  from  the  hands  of  the 
common  soldiers.  His  crown  was  found  later 
in  a  hawthorn  bush.  His  body  disappeared. 
There  are  various  accounts  as  to  what  befel 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  75 

it,  but  it  is  only  certain  that  it  was  obscurely 
buried. 

So  fell  the  last  Plantagenet,  fittingly,  upon 
the  field  of  battle,  heading  a  desperate  charge. 
So  fell  also  the  first  King  who  saw  the  com 
ing  of  a  new  time  in  England,  and  who  was 
great  statesman  enough  to  begin  a  policy 
which  would  break  the  power  of  the  nobles, 
overthrow  the  feudal  system,  and  bring  from 
the  union  of  crown  and  people  law  and  order 
out  of  chaos  and  anarchy.  The  accepted  tra 
dition  is  that  Richard  was  overthrown  because 
he  was  so  universally  hated  for  his  cruelty  and 
tyranny  that  every  one  was  eager  to  desert 
him  and  to  compass  his  downfall  at  the  first 
opportunity.  For  this  tradition  there  is  no 
solid  foundation.  To  begin  with,  Richard  was 
not  a  tyrant.  All  his  legislation  and  his  whole 
general  policy  were  popular  and  liberal.  As 
to  his  cruelty,  admitting  once  for  all  every 
crime  that  can  be  charged  against  him  on  any 
reasonable  evidence,  the  cold  -  blooded  execu 
tion  of  Hastings,  Rivers,  Vaughan,  and  Grey, 
and  the  murder  of  the  princes,  there  is  no 
doubt  that,  according  to  the  views  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  Richard  was  indifferent 
to  human  life,  blood-thirsty,  and  cruel.  He 
did  not  live,  however,  in  the  nineteenth  but  in 


76  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

the  fifteenth  century.  He  lived  among  feudal 
nobles,  in  a  period  of  constant  and  savage  war, 
and  in  a  society  whose  views  as  to  the  sacred- 
ness  of  human  life  and  as  to  murder,  treachery, 
and  the  like,  were  those  of  North  American 
Indians.  If  Richard  be  tried  by  the  only 
proper  standard,  that  of  his  own  time,  he  will 
be  found  to  be  not  more,  but  less,  cruel  and 
bloody  than  either  his  predecessors  or  those 
who  came  after  him.  The  act  which  has 
especially  blackened  his  memory  is  the  mys 
terious  removal  or  murder  of  the  princes. 
Yet  Clifford,  backed  by  Margaret  of  Anjou, 
had  killed  in  cold  blood  Richard's  brother, 
the  Earl  of  Rutland,  a  boy  of  sixteen,  while 
Henry  VII.  imprisoned  and  executed  the 
feeble-minded  Earl  of  Warwick,  the  son  of 
Clarence.  In  mere  numbers  of  executions, 
excluding,  of  course,  on  both  sides,  those  who 
were  taken  in  open  rebellion,  Richard  has 
much  less  to  answer  for  than  Queen  Mar 
garet  or  Henry  VII. ,  and  far  less  than  Henry 
VIII. ,  who  put  to  death  anybody  who  hap 
pened  to  be  distasteful  to  him  on  political, 
personal,  or  religious  grounds.  There  was  no 
public  opinion  in  that  day  against  putting  to 
death  any  one  who  had  played  and  lost  in  the 
great  struggle  of  politics.  Executions  were  a 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  77 

recognized  part  of  the  business.  When  the 
game  went  against  a  statesman  in  those  days, 
as  Mr.  Speaker  Reed  once  said,  he  did  not 
cross  the  aisle  and  take  his  place  as  the  leader 
of  his  Majesty's  opposition;  he  was  sent  to 
the  Tower  and  had  his  head  cut  off.  Ant  res 
temps,  autrcs  mccurs.  At  every  turn  of  the 
wheel  in  the  long  struggle  between  the  Lan 
castrians  and  the  Yorkists,  the  victorious  par 
ty  always  executed  every  leader  of  the  other 
side  upon  whom  they  could  lay  hands.  Such 
were  the  rules  of  the  society,  and  such  the 
politics  in  which  Richard  was  brought  up, 
and  he  played  according  to  those  rules,  with 
out  excess,  paying  the  final  forfeit  himself 
with  undaunted  courage. 

Nothing  is  further  from  the  truth  than  the 
notion  that  Richard  was  unpopular  with  the 
masses  of  the  people.  He  had  never  injured 
them,  and  they  did  not  care  how  many  nobles 
or  princes  he  put  to  death.  There  is  no  evi 
dence  that  there  was  any  popular  uprising 
against  Richard  at  any  time,  but,  on  the  con 
trary,  all  the  evidence  we  have  shows  that  he 
was  supported  and  liked  by  the  people,  espe 
cially  in  the  North,  where  he  was  best  known. 
This  was  but  natural.  Richard  represented 
law,  order,  and  authority.  All  his  legislation 


78  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

was  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  and  they 
knew  it.  Their  enemies  and  his  were  the 
same,  and  they  knew  that  too. 

Yet  it  is  true  that  Richard  was  hated.  Faby- 
an  records  that  there  were  mutterings  against 
him  on  the  very  day  of  his  coronation,  but  the 
men  who  muttered  thus  under  their  breath, 
according  to  the  old  chronicler,  were  the  no 
bles,  not  the  people.  Now  we  come  to  the 
real  unpopularity  of  Richard.  He  was  hated 
by  the  classes,  not  by  the  masses.  The  nobles 
who  had  opposed  him  hated  him  because  he 
had  beaten  them ;  those  who  had  supported 
him,  because  they  found  a  master  where  they 
intended  to  have  a  puppet.  All  classes  of 
the  nobility  soon  grew  to  hate  him  with  a 
common  and  bitter  hatred,  because  they  recog 
nized  in  him  the  enemy  of  their  order  and 
saw  that  every  move  he  made  tended  to  de 
stroy  their  power.  He  was  fighting  the  battle 
of  crown  and  people  against  the  feudal  system 
of  petty  tyrants,  and  the  nobles,  who  saw  po 
litical  and  military  ruin  advancing  upon  them, 
rose  against  the  King  who  led  the  march. 
They  raised  a  rebellion  under  Buckingham 
and  failed.  They  took  breath,  set  up  a  claim 
ant  to  the  throne,  supplied  him  with  forces, 
and  then,  by  treachery,  wrecked  the  royal 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  79 

army  at  Bosworth  and  slew  their  foe.  It 
was  their  last  effort ;  they  were  exhausted, 
and,  although  they  had  changed  kings,  they 
had  not  changed  royalty  or  checked  the 
movement  of  the  time.  The  feudal  system 
fell  at  Bosworth  with  the  King  who  had 
given  it  its  death-blow  and  marked  out  the 
road  for  his  successor  to  follow. 

It  is  here  we  come  on  the  real  importance 
of  Richard  III.,  when  we  find  him  a  part  of 
the  great  movement  of  the  time,  and  leading 
the  real  forces  which  make  history.  If  Rich 
ard's  character  as  a  man  were  all,  it  would  not 
be  more  than  a  matter  of  curiosity  to  inquire 
into  the  truth  concerning  him.  But  behind 
this  personal  question  there  rises  one  of  real 
importance,  which  has  just  been  indicated, 
and  to  which  those  who  have  written  upon 
him  have  given  but  little  attention.  On  this 
side  we  are  no  longer  dealing  with  doubtful  or 
prejudiced  chroniclers,  no  longer  delving  in 
dark  corners  whence  the  best  issue  is  a  prob 
ability.  Here  we  come  out  into  the  broad 
light  of  day,  where  our  authorities  are  the  un 
questioned  witnesses  of  laws  and  state  rec 
ords,  which  tell  us  nothing  of  persons  but 
much  of  things.  In  them,  as  we  have  seen,  a 
strong,  consistent  policy  is  disclosed,  and  that 


80  THE   LAST   PLANTAGENET 

policy  reveals  to  us  the  great  social  and  po 
litical  change  then  in  progress. 

It  was  the  period  when  an  old  order  of  life 
was  dying  and  a  new  one  was  being  born. 
The  great  feudal  system  of  England  was 
drawing  to  its  unlamented  close.  It  had 
worked  out  its  destiny.  It  had  rendered 
due  service  in  its  time,  and  had  curbed  the 
crown  in  the  interests  of  liberty,  but  its  in 
herent  vices  had  grown  predominant,  and  in 
this  way  it  had  come  to  be  a  block  to  the 
movement  of  men  towards  better  things.  In 
its  development  the  feudal  system  had  ceased 
to  be  of  value  as  an  aid  to  freedom  against 
a  centralized  tyranny,  and  had  become  in 
stead  purely  a  dissolving  and  separatist  force. 
When  it  culminated  under  Henry  VI.,  we  can 
see  its  perfect  work.  The  crown,  the  cen 
tral  cohesive  national  power,  had  ceased  to 
be.  The  real  rulers  of  England  were  the 
great  nobles,  who  set  up  and  pulled  down 
kings  and  tore  the  country  with  ambitious 
factions.  Warwick  was  the  arch-type,  and  the 
name  he  has  kept  through  the  centuries  of 
the  "  King  -maker "  really  tells  the  story. 
More  men  wore  his  livery  and  cognizance, 
more  men  would  gather  to  the  Bear  and  Rag 
ged  Staff  of  the  Nevilles,  than  the  King  him- 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  8 1 

self  could  summon.  In  a  less  degree  all  the 
great  nobles  were  the  same.  Each  was  prac 
tically  the  head  of  a  standing  army.  If  the 
King  did  not  please  them,  they  took  up  arms, 
set  up  another  King,  and  went  to  war.  As 
they  were  always  rent  into  bitter  factions,  the 
King  could  not  please  more  than  a  portion  of 
the  nobility  at  any  time,  and  the  result  was 
organized  anarchy  or  the  Wars  of  the  Roses. 
The  condition  was  little  better  than  that 
which  led  Poland  to  ruin  and  partition. 

The  other  powers  in  the  state  were  King 
and  people.  To  both  the  situation  was  hate 
ful.  The  King  did  not  like  to  hold  his  crown 
by  sufferance  and  lie  at  the  mercy  of  two  or 
three  powerful  subjects.  The  people,  espe 
cially  in  the  towns,  began  to  long  for  peace 
and  order,  and  greatly  preferred  the  chance  of 
one  man's  tyranny  to  the  infinitely  worse  op 
pression  of  a  hundred  petty  tyrants.  Steadily 
King  and  people  were  drawing  together,  and 
the  only  question  was  when  they  would  be 
able  to  crush  the  feudal  nobility  and  break 
their  power.  Edward  IV.  saw  what  it  was 
necessary  to  do,  and  made  some  spasmodic 
efforts  in  the  right  direction.  But  Edward, 
although  a  brilliant  general,  was  no  states 
man.  He  was  too  sensual,  too  indolent,  too 
6 


82  THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET 

worthless,  except  on  the  field  of  battle,  for 
such  work.  Richard  was  as  brilliant  a  soldier 
as  Edward,  but  he  was  also  a  statesman,  and 
he  was  neither  sensual  nor  indolent.  Short 
as  his  reign  was,  a  great  work  was  done,  and 
we  have  seen  that  a  clear,  strong  policy  of 
maintaining  law  and  order  and  of  crushing 
the  nobility  runs  in  unbroken  line  through  his 
statutes. 

It  was  wise  and  able  work.  Unluckily  for 
himself,  although  it  made  no  difference  in  the 
result,  Richard  was  just  a  little  too  early. 
The  feudal  nobility  were  dying,  but  not  quite 
dead.  There  were  still  enough  of  them  to  set 
up  a  claimant  for  the  crown,  still  enough  to 
betray  Richard  and  kill  him  on  the  field  of 
battle.  He  was  their  enemy,  and  as  a  class 
they  knew  it.  It  was  not  his  cruelty,  even  if 
we  admit  as  true  all  the  Shakespearian  crimes. 
Executions  and  murders  of  royal  and  noble 
persons  were  too  much  the  fashion  of  the 
day  to  base  a  campaign  on  for  the  crown. 
They  called  Richard  tyrant  and  murderer  and 
"  bloody  boar,"  and  he  retorted  with  procla 
mations  in  which  he  denounced  them  not 
merely  as  traitors  but  as  murderers,  adulter 
ers,  and  extortioners.  There  was  just  as  much 
truth  in  one  charge  as  the  other,  and  neither 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  83 

was  of  any  importance  in  the  fight.  Mr.  Lcggc 
is  right  in  saying  that  there  was  no  national  or 
popular  uprising.  Indeed,  the  people  of  York 
mourned  publicly  over  Richard's  "  treacherous 
murder,"  when  such  lamentation  was  far  from 
safe,  and  quarrelled  in  defence  of  his  memory 
six  years  later.  There  was,  in  reality,  no  reason 
for  a  popular  revolt  against  Richard,  for,  as  has 
been  shown,  all  his  legislation  and  public  acts 
made  for  the  benefit  of  the  people  as  much  as 
of  the  crown,  and,  as  Richard  represented  the 
new  movement  in  politics,  they  were  bound  to 
do  so. 

If  Richard  had  been  a  little  more  thorough 
and  a  little  more  cruel,  if  he  had  sent  Lord 
Stanley  to  the  block,  as  he  was  warranted  in 
doing  by  the  code  of  the  day,  if  he  had  sent 
Stanley's  wife  along  the  same  road,  and  pro 
cured,  as  he  might  have  done,  the  murder  of 
the  Earl  of  Richmond,  all  would  have  gone 
well  with  him.  He  would  have  died,  probably, 
according  to  his  sneer,  "  a  good  old  man,"  and 
he  would  have  left  an  immense  reputation  as 
the  King  who  stamped  out  feudalism,  opened 
the  door  to  learning  and  civilization,  brought 
crown  and  people  together,  consolidated  the 
English  monarchy,  and  set  England  on  the 
triumphant  march  of  modern  days.  His  exc- 


84  THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET 

cutions  and  cruelties  would  have  been  glossed 
over,  and  his  exploits  and  abilities  enlarged. 
But  he  struck  the  first  intelligent  blow  from 
the  throne  at  the  anarchic  nobility,  and  they 
had  still  strength  to  return  the  blow,  kill  him, 
and  then  load  his  memory  with  obloquy. 

Richard's  immediate  vindication  as  a  states 
man  lies  in  the  fact  that  his  successor  continued 
his  policy,  and,  enforcing  the  law  against  pri 
vate  liveries,  fined  heavily  his  great  supporter, 
the  Earl  of  Oxford,  because,  on  a  royal  visit, 
the  Earl  received  him  with  two  thousand  re 
tainers  wearing  the  cognizance  of  the  house  of 
Vere.  The  movement  towards  the  consolida 
tion  of  the  monarchy  and  the  development  of 
the  people  as  a  force  proceeded  from  the  points 
fixed  by  the  last  Plantagenet.  Richard  came 
just  at  the  dawn  of  the  new  movement,  and 
thus  marks  by  his  reign  no  less  than  by  his 
legislation  a  turning-point  of  momentous  im 
portance  in  the  history  of  the  English-speaking 
race. 

He  was  the  beginner  of  new  things,  but  he 
was  also  the  end  of  an  old  order.  He  was  the 
last  of  a  great  dynasty.  For  nearly  four  hun 
dred  years  the  Plantagenets  held  the  English 
throne.  In  all  history  there  has  never  been  of 
one  blood  and  of  one  lineage,  unbroken  and  un- 


THE    LAST    PLANTAGENET  85 

tainted,  a  reigning  family  which  has  shown  so 
much  ability  of  so  high  an  order.  They  pro 
duced  great  soldiers  and  great  statesmen,  and 
these  were  the  rule.  The  weaklings  were  only  a 
few  marked  exceptions.  They  were,  essentially, 
a  royal,  ruling,  fighting  race,  and  their  end  was 
coincident  with  that  of  the  old  feudal  nobility 
and  its  system.  The  change  was  startling.  The 
great  dynasty  of  fighting  monarchs  and  states 
men  was  succeeded  by  a  set  of  bourgeois  kings. 
Henry  VII.  was  the  grandson  of  an  obscure 
Welsh  gentleman,  and  his  methods  answered 
to  his  origin.  He  was  a  shrewd,  able  man,  un 
scrupulous  and  crafty,  every  whit  as  cruel  as 
Richard,  and,  as  Horace  Walpole  says,  one  of 
the  "  meanest  tyrants  "  who  ever  sat  upon  a 
throne.  He  recognized  in  the  light  of  what 
Richard  had  done  the  true  forces  of  the  time, 
and  went  with  them.  But  the  old  conquer 
ing,  adventurous  spirit  of  the  Plantagenets  had 
gone  and  the  bourgeois  monarchy  had  come. 
A  bourgeois  monarchy  it  remained,  despite  the 
false  romance  cast  over  the  Stuarts,  and  it  be 
came  more  so  than  ever  when  a  third-rate 
German  family  was  called  to  the  throne.  In 
the  four  hundred  years  since  the  Plantagenets 
there  have  been  three  dynasties  in  England, 
besides  Oliver  Cromwell  and  William  of  Orange. 


86  THE   LAST   PLANTAGENET 

Among  them  all,  since  the  last  Plantagenet  fell 
at  Bosworth,  closing  a  long  line  of  statesmen 
and  warriors,  England  has  had  but  two  great 
rulers,  and  one  was  a  country  squire,  the  other, 
a  Dutch  prince.  There  was  ability  in  the  Tu- 
dors,  and  common-sense,  much  meanness  and 
cruelty,  and  highly  imperfect  morals.  Of  the 
Stuarts,  Charles  II.  had  some  sense,  but  the 
rest  had  neither  sense  nor  morals,  and  were  as 
worthless  a  family  as  accident  ever  brought  to 
a  crown.  The  Guelphs  have  answered  their 
purpose,  but  it  would  be  flattery  to  call  them 
mediocre  in  ability.  It  is  a  picturesque  con 
trast  to  the  brilliant  Plantagenets,  and  yet  it 
must  be  admitted  that  these  mediocre  bour 
geois  sovereigns,  in  the  main  plain  and  sensible 
folk,  have  been  best  probably  for  England  and 
for  the  marvellous  development  of  her  people. 
The  change  in  the  nobles  was  no  less  sharp 
than  in  the  occupants  of  the  throne.  The  old 
feudal  nobility  was  practically  extinct  when 
Henry  VII.  came  to  the  throne,  and  new  men 
took  their  places.  This  old  nobility  had 
grievous  faults,  and  their  political  system  was 
deadly.  They  were  sunk  in  superstition;  not 
merely  the  superstition  of  the  Church,  but 
that  of  the  necromancer  and  the  witch,  the 
wizard  and  the  soothsayer.  In  cruelty  and 


THE   LAST   PLANTAGENET  87 

bloodshed  they  had  the  habits  of  Red  Indians. 
They  were  illiterate,  tyrannical,  vindictive,  and 
often  treacherous.  Yet,  despite  all  this,  they 
were  brave  and  adventurous,  a  fighting,  con 
quering,  ruling  class.  As  to  the  crown  a  bour 
geois  monarch,  so  to  the  dead  feudal  nobility 
a  bourgeois  nobility  succeeded.  Empson  and 
Dudley  typify  at  the  worst  the  new  men  who 
rose  to  power  under  Henry  VII.  The  new 
nobility  was  a  land-grabbing,  money-getting 
set.  They  plundered  the  Church  and  seized 
her  lands;  they  inclosed  the  commons  and 
added  them  to  their  domains.  As  a  class, 
they  were  sharp  political  managers,  rarely 
statesmen,  and  they  had  none  of  the  bold, 
adventurous  spirit  of  their  predecessors.  They 
made  no  wars,  they  sought  no  conquests,  they 
engaged  in  no  dangerous  enterprises.  If  the 
old  nobility  had  the  failings  usually  attributed 
to  pirates,  their  successors  had  the  faults  com 
monly  given  to  usurers. 

Last  remained  the  people,  who  were  neither 
extinct  nor  dethroned,  but  who  were  just  tak 
ing  the  first  painful  steps  which  were  to  lead 
them  to  supremacy.  The  abolition  of  military 
tenures  and  the  break-down  of  the  feudal  sys 
tem  wrought  a  great  change  in  their  condition. 
Villanage  disappeared,  and  from  holding  land 


88  THE   LAST   PLANTAGENET 

by  military  service  they  became  rent-payers. 
Then  the  commons  were  inclosed,  and  the 
struggle  for  life  became  desperate.  Some 
were  forced  down  until  they  sank  into  agri 
cultural  laborers.  Others  remained  tenant 
farmers ;  others  rose  to  be  small  squires  and 
country  gentry.  Very  many  were  forced  off 
the  land  and  took  to  the  sea,  to  trade,  to  the 
professions.  In  the  earlier  days  the  daring 
English  spirit  was  embodied  in  her  Plantag- 
enet  kings  and  her  feudal  nobility.  After 
the  coming  of  the  bourgeois  monarchy  that 
spirit  deserted  kings  and  nobles,  but  it  was 
as  strong  and  undimmed  as  ever  in  the  de 
scendants  of  the  men  who  had  drawn  the 
bow  and  followed  the  Edwards  and  the 
Henrys  at  Poictiers  and  Cressy  and  Agin- 
court.  While  the  bourgeois  kings  and  no 
bles  controlled  England,  she  displayed,  as  a 
nation,  none  of  the  old  spirit.  We  find  it 
then  only  in  men  like  Drake  and  Raleigh,  but 
they  came  from  the  people,  from  the  old 
fighting  stock.  At  last  crown  and  people 
clashed,  and  under  Cromwell  England  rose 
once  more  to  the  rank  of  a  great  power,  able 
to  dictate  to  Europe.  The  Plantagenet  spirit 
came  again  with  the  man  of  the  people. 
There  was  a  brief  interregnum,  then  the  de- 


THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET  89 

scendants  of  the  feudal  retainers  consolidated 
and  obtained  control  of  the  nation  ;  and,  be 
ginning  with  William  and  Marlborough,  Eng 
land  entered  on  that  wonderful  course  of  con 
quest  and  extension  which  ran  through  the 
whole  eighteenth  century,  and  subdued  new 
continents  and  old  civilizations  alike.  The 
spirit  of  the  Plantagenets  and  their  nobles 
came  to  a  new  and  more  glorious  being 
among  the  descendants  of  the  men  who  had 
followed  them,  and  while  the  bourgeois  no 
bility  produced  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  the 
commons  of  England  gave  her  the  elder  Pitt. 

Such  was  the  change  which  began  under 
Richard  III.,  and  which  modern  research  among 
rolls  and  records  has  brought  to  light  by  ex 
hibiting  to  us  the  course  and  purpose  of  his 
legislation.  The  importance  of  his  place  in 
history  is  plain  enough  to  those  who  care  to 
look  into  it  with  "considerate  eyes."  The 
ability  of  the  man,  his  greatness  as  a  soldier, 
his  wisdom  as  a  statesman  are  also  clear. 
These  things  were  his  alone;  while  his  crimes 
and  his  overmastering  ambition,  although  his 
own  too,  were  also  the  offspring  of  his  times, 
of  which  he,  like  other  men,  was  the  child  and 
prototype. 

Yet    the    helplessness    of    history   when    it 


90  THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET 

comes  in  conflict  with  the  work  of  a  great 
imagination  has  never  been  more  strikingly 
shown  than  in  the  case  of  the  third  Richard. 
Historians  and  critics  may  write  volumes, 
they  may  lay  bare  all  the  facts,  they  may 
argue  and  dissect  and  weigh  and  discuss  ev 
ery  jot  and  tittle  of  evidence,  but,  except  to 
a  very  limited  circle,  it  will  be  labor  lost  so 
far  as  the  man  Richard  is  concerned.  The 
last  Plantagenet  will  ever  remain  fixed  in  the 
popular  fancy  by  the  unsparing  hand  of 
genius.  To  the  multitude  who  read  books, 
to  the  vaster  and  uncounted  multitude  who 
go  to  the  theatre,  there  will  never  be  but 
one  Richard — the  Richard  of  Shakespeare. 
There,  in  the  drama  and  on  the  stage,  he  has 
been  fixed  for  all  time,  and  nothing  can  efface 
the  image.  He  will  be  forever,  not  only  to 
the  English-speaking  world,  but  to  the  people 
of  Europe,  to  whom  Shakespeare's  language 
is  an  unknown  tongue,  the  crook-backed  ty 
rant.  Always,  while  art  and  letters  survive, 
will  the  last  Plantagenet  limp  across  the  stage, 
stab  Henry  with  a  bitter  gibe,  send  Clarence 
to  his  death  with  a  sneer,  and  order  Bucking 
ham  and  Hastings  to  execution  as  he  would 
command  his  dinner  to  be  served.  The  opin 
ion  of  posterity  probably  does  not  trouble 


THE    LAST   PLANTAGENET  91 

Richard  much  since  the  event  at  Bosworth ; 
but  if  it  did,  he  nevertheless  has  one  com 
pensation  for  all  the  odium  which  has  been 
heaped  upon  him.  Despite  the  lurid  light  in 
which  he  appears,  it  is  still  he,  and  not  his 
rival,  who  has  the  plaudits  of  the  countless 
people  who  have  watched,  and  will  yet  watch, 
his  career  upon  the  mimic  stage.  They  know 
that  he  is  a  remorseless  usurper,  a  devil  in 
carnate,  for  it  has  been  set  before  them  with 
the  master's  unerring  art.  But  the  same  art 
has  shown  them  the  man's  ability  and  power, 
his  force  of  will,  and  his  dauntless  courage. 
When  the  supreme  moment  comes,  the  popu 
lar  sympathy  is  not  with  Henry,  loudly  pro 
claiming  his  virtuous  sentiments,  but  with  his 
fierce  antagonist.  The  applause  and  cheers 
which  greet  the  final  scene  are  not  for  the  re 
spectable  Richmond,  but  for  him  who  kills 
five  Richmonds,  who  enacts  more  wonders 
than  a  man,  and  who  dies  King  of  England, 
hemmed  in  by  enemies,  as  full  of  valor  as  of 
royal  blood,  desperate  in  courage  as  in  all  else, 
fighting  grimly  to  the  last  like  a  true  Plantag- 
enet. 


SHAKESPEARE'S    AMERICANISMS 


SHAKESPEARE'S   AMERICANISMS 

MUCH  has  been  written  first  and  last  about 
certain  English  words  and  phrases  which  are 
commonly  called  "Americanisms."  That  they 
are  so  classified  is  due  to  our  brethren  of  Eng 
land,  who  seem  to  think  that  in  this  way  they 
not  only  relieve  themselves  of  all  responsibili 
ty  for  the  existence  of  these  offending  parts 
of  speech,  but  that  they  also  in  some  mys 
terious  manner  make  them  things  apart  and 
put  them  outside  the  pale  of  the  English 
language.  No  one  would  be  hard-hearted 
enough  to  grudge  to  our  island  kindred  any 
comfort  they  may  take  in  this  mental  opera 
tion,  but  that  any  one  should  cherish  such  a 
belief  shows  a  curious  ignorance,  not  merely 
as  to  many  of  the  words  in  question,  but  as  to 
the  history  and  present  standing  of  the  lan 
guage  itself.  To  describe  an  English  word 
or  phrase  as  American  or  British  or  Austra 
lian  or  Indian  or  South  African  may  be  con 
venient  if  we  wish  to  define  that  portion  of 


96  SHAKESPEARE'S  AMERICANISMS 

the  English-speaking  people  among  whom  it 
originated  or  by  whom  it  has  been  kept  or 
revived  from  the  usage  of  an  earlier  day. 
But  it  is  worse  than  useless  to  do  so  if  an 
attempt  to  exclude  the  word  from  English 
speech  is  thereby  intended.  It  is  no  longer 
possible  in  any  such  fashion  as  this  to  set 
up  arbitrary  metes  and  bounds  to  the  great 
language  which  has  spread  over  the  world 
with  the  march  of  the  people  who  use  it. 
The  " Queen's  English"  was  a  phrase  correct 
enough  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  or  Anne, 
but  it  is  an  absurdity  in  those  of  Victoria. 
In  the  time  of  the  last  Tudor  or  the  last 
Stuart  every  one  whose  native  tongue  was 
English  could  be  properly  set  down  as  a  sub 
ject  of  the  English  Queen.  No  such  propo 
sition  is  possible  now.  The  English-speaking 
people  who  owe  no  allegiance  to  England's 
Queen  are  to-day  more  numerous  than  those 
who  do. 

In  the  face  of  facts  like  these  it  is  just  as  im 
possible  to  set  limits  to  the  language  or  to  es 
tablish  a  proprietorship  in  it  in  any  given  place 
as  it  would  be  to  fetter  the  growth  of  the  peo 
ple  who  speak  it.  It  is  the  existence  of  these 
conditions  which  also  makes  it  out  of  the  ques 
tion  to  have  any  fixed  standard  of  English  in 


SHAKESPEARE'S  AMERICANISMS  97 

the  narrow  sense  not  uncommon  in  other  lan 
guages.  It  is  quite  possible  to  have  Tuscan 
Italian  or  Castilian  Spanish  or  Parisian  French 
as  the  standard  of  correctness,  but  no  one 
ever  heard  of  "  London  English  "  used  in  that 
sense.  The  reason  is  simple.  These  nations 
have  ceased  to  spread  and  colonize  or  to 
grow  as  nations.  They  are  practically  sta 
tionary.  But  English  is  the  language  of  a 
conquering,  colonizing  race,  which  in  the  last 
three  centuries  has  subdued  and  possessed  an 
cient  civilizations  and  virgin  continents  alike, 
and  whose  speech  is  now  heard  in  the  remot 
est  corners  of  the  earth. 

It  is  not  the  least  of  the  many  glories  of 
the  English  tongue  that  it  has  proved  equal 
to  the  task  which  its  possessors  have  imposed 
upon  it.  Like  the  race,  it  has  shown  itself 
capable  of  assimilating  new  elements  without 
degeneration.  It  has  met  new  conditions, 
adapted  itself  to  them,  and  prevailed  over 
them.  It  has  proved  itself  flexible  without 
weakness,  and  strong  without  rigidity.  With 
all  its  vast  spread,  it  still  remains  unchanged 
in  essence  and  in  all  its  great  qualities. 

For  such  a  language  with  such  a  history  no 
standard  of  a  province  or  a  city  can  be  fixed 
in  order  to  make  a  narrow  rule  from  which  no 
7 


98  SHAKESPEARE'S  AMERICANISMS 

appeal  is  possible.  The  usage  of  the  best 
writers  for  the  written,  and  of  the  best  edu 
cated  and  most  highly  trained  men  for  the 
spoken  word,  without  regard  to  where  they 
may  have  been  born  or  to  where  they  live,  is 
the  only  possible  standard  for  English  speech. 
Such  a  test  may  not  be  very  sharply  defined, 
but  it  is  the  only  one  practicable  for  a  lan 
guage  which  has  done  so  much,  and  which  is 
constantly  growing  and  advancing.  As  a  rule 
of  conduct  in  writing  or  speaking  it  is  true 
that  this  kind  of  standard  may  be  in  unes 
sential  points  a  little  vague.  But  this  de 
fect,  if  it  be  one,  is  outweighed  a  thousand 
times  by  the  fact  that  the  language  is  thus 
freed  from  the  stiffness  and  narrowness  which 
denote  that  the  race  has  ceased  to  march,  and 
that  expansion  for  people  and  speech  alike  is 
at  an  end. 

Yet  the  changes  made  during  this  world 
wide  extension,  with  all  the  infinite  variety 
of  new  conditions  which  accompanied  it,  are, 
after  all,  more  apparent  than  real.  That  they 
should  be  so  few  and  at  the  same  time  so  all- 
sufficient  for  every  fresh  need  that  has  arisen 
demonstrates  better  than  anything  else  the 
marvellous  .strength  and  richness  inherent  in 
the  English  language.  In  some  cases  new 


SHAKESPEARE'S  AMERICANISMS  99 

words  have  been  invented  or  added  to  express 
ne\v  facts  or  new  things,  and  these  are  both 
valuable  and  necessary.  In  other  cases  old 
words,  both  in  the  mother-country  and  else 
where,  have,  in  the  processes  of  time  and  of 
altered  conditions,  been  changed  in  meaning 
and  usage,  sometimes  for  the  better  and  some 
times  for  the  worse.  In  still  other  instances 
old  words  and  old  meanings  have  lived  on  or 
been  revived  by  one  branch  of  the  race  when 
given  up  or  modified  elsewhere. 

It  is  this  last  fact  which  makes  it  so  futile  to 
try  to  shut  out  from  the  language  and  its  liter 
ature  certain  words  and  phrases  merely  because 
they  are  not  used  in  the  island  whence  people 
and  speech  started  on  their  career  of  conquest. 
It  does  not  in  the  least  follow,  because  a  word 
is  not  used  to-day  in  England,  that  it  is  either 
new  or  bad.  It  may  be  both,  as  is  the  case 
with  many  words  which  have  never  travelled 
beyond  the  mother-country,  and  with  many 
others  which  have  never  been  heard  in  the  par 
ent-land.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may  equally 
well  be  neither.  The  mere  fact  that  a  word 
exists  in  one  place  and  not  in  another,  of  itself 
proves  nothing.  That  those  of  the  English- 
speaking  people  who  have  remained  in  Great 
Britain  should  condemn  as  pestilent  innova- 


ioo  SHAKESPEARE'S  AMERICANISMS 

tions  words  which  they  do  not  use  themselves 
is  very  natural,  but  quite  unscientific.  It  is 
the  same  attitude  as  that  of  the  Tory  reviewer 
who  condemned  some  of  James  Russell  Low 
ell's  letters  as  "  provincial."  They  are  different 
in  tone  and  thought  from  that  to  which  he  is 
accustomed,  and  hence  he  asserts  that  they 
must  be  bad.  The  real  trouble  is  merely  that 
the  letters  are  American  and  not  English,  con 
tinental  and  not  insular.  They  are  not  in  the 
language  or  the  spirit  of  the  critic's  own  parish  ; 
that  is  all.  They  jar  on  his  habits  of  thought 
because  they  differ  from  his  standard,  and  so 
he  sets  them  down  as  provincial,  failing  hope 
lessly  to  see  that  mere  difference  proves  noth 
ing  either  way  as  to  merits  or  defects.  So  a 
word  used  in  the  United  States  and  not  in 
England  may  be  good  or  bad,  but  the  mere 
fact  that  it  is  in  use  in  one  place  and  not  in 
the  other  has  no  bearing  as  to  either  its  good 
ness  or  the  reverse.  Its  virtues  or  its  defects 
must  be  determined  on  grounds  more  relative 
than  this. 

The  best  proof  of  the  propositions  just  ad 
vanced  can  be  found  by  examining  some  of  the 
words  which  exist  here  and  not  in  Great  Brit 
ain,  or  which  are  used  here  with  a  meaning 
differing  from  that  of  British  usage.  It  is  well 


SHAKESPEARE  S    AMERICANISMS  IOI 

to  remember  at  the  outset  that  the  English 
speech  was  planted  in  this  country  by  English 
emigrants,  who  settled  Virginia  and  New  Eng 
land  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury.  To  Virginia  came  many  educated  men, 
who  became  the  planters,  land-owners,  and  lead 
ers  of  the  infant  State,  and,  although  they  did 
little  for  nearly  a  century  in  behalf  of  general 
education,  the  sons  of  the  governing  class  were 
either  taught  at  home  by  English  tutors  or  sent 
across  the  water  to  English  colleges.  In  New 
England  the  average  education  among  the  first 
settlers  was  high,  and  they  showed  their  love 
of  learning  by  their  immediate  foundation  of 
a  college  and  of  a  public-school  system.  The 
Puritan  leaders  and  their  powerful  clergy  were, 
as  a  rule,  college-bred  men,  with  all  the  tradi 
tions  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  fresh  in  their 
minds  and  dear  to  their  hearts.  They  would 
have  been  the  last  men  to  corrupt  or  abuse  the 
mother-tongue,  which  they  cherished  more  than 
ever  in  the  new  and  distant  land.  The  language 
which  these  people  brought  with  them  to  Vir 
ginia  and  Massachusetts,  moreover,  was,  as  Mr. 
Lowell  has  remarked,  the  language  of  Shake 
speare,  who  lived  and  wrote  and  died  just  at  the 
period  when  these  countrymen  of  his  were  tak 
ing  their  way  to  the  New  World.  In  view  of 


102  SHAKESPEARE  S    AMERICANISMS 

these  latter-day  criticisms,  it  might  seem  as  if 
these  emigrants  ought  to  have  brought  some 
kind  of  English  with  them  other  than  that  of 
Shakespeare's  England,  but,  luckily  or  unluck 
ily,  that  was  the  only  mode  of  speech  they  had. 
It  followed  very  naturally  that  some  of  the 
words  thus  brought  over  the  water,  and  then 
common  to  the  English  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic,  survived  only  in  the  New  World,  to 
which  they  were  transplanted.  This  is  not  re 
markable,  but  it  is  passing  strange  that  words 
not  only  used  in  Shakespeare's  time,  but  used 
by  Shakespeare  himself,  should  have  lived  to 
be  disdainfully  called  "  Americanisms  "  by  peo 
ple  now  living  in  Shakespeare's  own  country. 
It  is  well,  therefore,  to  look  at  a  few  of  these 
words  occasionally,  if  only  to  refresh  our  memo 
ries.  No  single  example,  perhaps,  is  new,  but 
when  we  bring  several  into  a  little  group  they 
make  a  picturesque  illustration  of  the  futility 
of  undertaking  to  exclude  a  word  from  good 
society  because  it  is  used  in  one  place  where 
English-speaking  people  dwell  and  not  in  an 
other. 

What  Mr.  Bartlett  in  his  dictionary  of 
Americanisms  calls  justly  one  of  "the  most 
marked  peculiarities  of  American  speech  "  is 
the  constant  use  of  the  word  "well"  as  an  in- 


SHAKESPEARE'S  AMERICANISMS  103 

terjection,  especially  at  the  beginning  of  sen 
tences.  Mr.  Bartlett  also  says,  "  Englishmen 
have  told  me  that  they  could  always  detect 
an  American  by  this  use  of  the  word."  Here 
perhaps  is  a  clew  to  the  true  nationality  of  the 
Danish  soldiers  with  Italian  names  and  idio 
matic  English  speech  who  appear  in  the  first 
scene  of  Hamlet  : 

"  Bernardo. — Have  you  had  quiet  guard  ? 
"Francisco. — Not  a  mouse  stirring. 
"  Bernardo. — Well,  good-night." 

This  is  as  excellent  and  precise  an  example 
of  the  every-day  American  use  of  the  word 
"  well  "  as  could  possibly  be  found.  The  fact 
is  that  the  use  of  "  well "  as  an  interjection  is 
so  common  in  Shakespeare  that  Mrs.  Clarke 
omits  the  word  used  in  that  capacity  from  her 
concordance,  and  explains  its  omissfon  on  the 
ground  of  its  constant  repetition,  like  "  come," 
"  look,"  "  marry,"  and  so  on.  Thus  has  it 
come  to  pass  that  an  American  betrays  his 
nationality  to  an  Englishman  because  he  uses 
the  word  "  well "  interjectionally,  as  Shake 
speare  used  it.  I  have  seen  more  than  once 
patronizing  criticisms  of  this  peculiarity  of 
American  speech,  but  have  never  suffered  at 


IO4  SHAKESPEARE  S   AMERICANISMS 

the  sight,  because  I  have  always  been  able  to 
take  to  myself  the  consolation  of  Lord  Byron, 
that  it  is 

"Better  to  err  with  Pope  than  shine  with  Pye." 

Our  English  brethren,  again,  use  the  word 
"  ill "  in  speaking  of  a  person  "  afflicted  with 
disease  " — to  take  Johnson's  definition  of  the 
word  "  sick."  They  restrict  the  word  "  sick  " 
to  "nausea,"  and  regard  our  employment  of 
it,  as  applicable  to  any  kind  of  disease,  or  to  a 
person  out  of  health  from  any  cause,  as  an 
"Americanism."  And  yet  this  "American 
ism  "  is  Elizabethan  and  Shakespearian.  For 
example,  in  Midsummer •-  Night 's  Dream  (Act 
I.,  Scene  I.),  Helena  says,  "  Sickness  is  catch 
ing,"  which  is  not  the  chief  characteristic  of 
the  ailment  to  which  modern  English  usage 
confines  the  word.  In  Cymbelinc>  again  (Act 
V.,  Scene  IV.),  we  find  the  phrase,  "  one 
that's  sick  o'  the  gout."  Examples  might  be 
multiplied,  for  Shakespeare  rarely  uses  the 
word  "ill,"  but  constantly  the  word  "sick" 
in  the  general  sense.  In  the  Bible  the  use  of 
"  sick  "  is,  I  believe,  unbroken.  The  marriage 
service  says,  "  in  sickness  and  in  health,"  and 
Johnson's  definition,  as  Mr.  Bartlett  points 


SHAKESPEARE'S  AMERICANISMS  105 

out,  conforms  to  the  usage  of  Chaucer,  Milton, 
Dryden,  and  Cowper.  Even  the  Englishman 
who  starts  with  surprise  at  our  general  appli 
cation  of  "  sick  "  and  "sickness,"  and  who  is 
nothing  if  not  logical,  would  not  think  of  de 
scribing  an  officer  of  the  army  as  absent  on 
"  ill-leave "  or  as  placed  upon  the  "  ill-list." 
The  English  restriction  of  the  use  of  these 
two  words  is,  in  truth,  wholly  unwarranted,  and 
should  be  given  up  in  favor  of  the  better  and 
older  American  usage,  which  is  that  of  all  the 
highest  standards  of  English  literature. 

The  conditions  of  travelling  have  changed 
so  much  during  this  century,  and  all  the 
methods  of  travel  are  so  new,  that  most  of 
the  words  connected  with  it  are  of  necessity 
new  also,  either  in  form  or  application.  In 
some  cases  the  same  phrases  have  sprung 
up  in  both  England  and  the  United  States 
to  meet  the  new  requirements.  In  others, 
different  words  have  been  chosen  by  the 
two  nations  to  express  the  same  thing, 
and,  so  far  as  merit  goes,  there  is  little  to 
choose  between  them.  But  there  are  a  few 
words  in  this  department  which  are  as  old 
as  travelling  itself,  and  which  were  as  neces 
sary  in  the  days  of  the  galley  and  the  pack- 
horse  as  they  are  in  those  of  the  steamship 


io6  SHAKESPEARE'S  AMERICANISMS 

and  the  railroad.  One  of  them  is  the  com 
prehensive  term  for  the  things  which  travellers 
carry  with  them.  Englishmen  commonly  use 
the  word  "  luggage  ";  we  Americans  the  word 
"  baggage."  In  this  habit  we  agree  with  Touch 
stone,  who,  using  a  phrase  which  has  become 
part  of  our  daily  speech,  says  (Act  III.,  Scene 
II.),  "  though  not  with  bag  and  baggage,  yet 
with  scrip  and  scrippage."  Leontes  also,  in  the 
Winter  s  Tale  (Act  I.,  Scene  II.),  employs  the 
same  phrase  as  Touchstone.  It  may  be  ar 
gued  that  both  allusions  are  drawn  from  mili 
tary  language,  in  which  "  baggage  "  is  always 
used.  But  this  will  not  avail,  for  "  luggage  " 
occurs  twice  at  least  in  Shakespeare,  referring 
solely  to  the  effects  of  an  army.  In  Henry  V. 
(Act  V.,  Scene  IV.)  we  find  "  the  luggage  of 
our  camp";  and  Fluellen  says,  in  the  same 
play  (Act  IV.,  Scene  VII.),  "Kill  the  poys 
and  the  luggage !"  Shakespeare  used  both 
words  indifferently  in  the  same  sense,  and  the 
"  Americanism  "  was  as  familiar  to  him  as  the 
"  Briticism." 

In  this  same  connection  it  may  be  added 
that  the  word  "trunk,"  which  we  use  where 
the  English  say  "  box,"  is,  like  "  baggage," 
Shakespearian.  It  occurs  in  Lear  (Act  II., 
Scene  II.),  where  Kent  calls  Oswald  a  "  one- 


SHAKESPEARE'S    AMERICANISMS  107 

trunk-inheriting  slave."  Johnson  interpreted 
this  to  mean  "  trunk-hose,"  which  makes  no 
sense.  Steevens  said  "trunk"  in  this  connec 
tion  meant  "  coffer,"  and  that  all  his  prop 
erty  was  in  one  "  coffer  "  or  "  trunk."  This 
seems  to  have  been  the  accepted  version  ever 
since,  as  it  is  certainly  the  obvious  and  sensi 
ble  one. 

Almost  always  the  preservation  or  revival 
of  a  Shakespearian  word  is  something  deserv 
ing  profound  gratitude,  but  the  great  master 
of  English  gives  some  authority  for  one  dis 
tasteful  phrase.  This  is  the  use  of  the  word 
"  stage  "  as  a  verb  in  the  sense  of  to  put  upon 
the  stage,  a  habit  which  has  become  of  late 
sadly  common.  So  the  Duke,  in  the  first 
scene  of  Measure  for  Measure ,  says  : 

"  I  love  the  people, 
But  do  not  like  to  stage  me  to  their  eyes." 

Again,  in  Antony  and  Cleopatra  (Act  III., 
Scene  XL),  "  be  stag'd  to  the  show,  against 
a  sworder."  And  again,  later  in  the  same 
play  (Act  V.,  Scene  II.),  Cleopatra  says: 

"the  quick  comedians 
Extemp'rally  will  stage  us." 


io8 

It  is  true  that  these  examples  all  refer  to  per 
sons  and  not  to  "staging  plays,"  as  the  phrase 
runs  to-day,  but  the  use  of  the  word,  especial 
ly  in  the  last  case,  seems  identically  the  same. 
Among  characteristic  American  words  none 
is  more  so  than  "  to  guess,"  in  the  sense  of 
"  to  think."  The  word  is  old  and  good,  but 
the  significance  that  we  give  it  is  charged 
against  us  as  an  innovation  of  our  own,  and 
wholly  without  warrant.  One  sees  it  contin 
ually  in  English  comic  papers,  and  in  books 
also,  put  into  the  mouths  of  Americans  as  a 
discreditable  but  unmistakable  badge  of  na 
tionality.  Shakespeare  uses  the  word  con 
stantly,  generally  in  the  narrower  sense  where 
it  implies  conjecture.  Yet  he  also  uses  it 
in  the  broader  American  sense  of  thinking. 
For  example,  in  Measure  for  Measure  (Act 
IV.,  Scene  IV.),  Angelo  says,  "And  why 
meet  him  at  the  gates,  and  redeliver  our 
authorities  there?"  To  which  Escalus  re 
plies,  in  a  most  emphatically  American  fash 
ion,  "  I  guess  not."  There  is  no  questioning, 
no  conjecture  here.  It  is  simply  our  common 
American  form  of  "  I  think  not."  Again,  in 
the  Winter  s  Tale  (Act  IV.,  Scene  III.),  Ca- 
millo  says,  "  Which,  I  do  guess,  you  do  not 
purpose  to  him."  This  is  the  same  use  of 


SHAKESPEARE'S  AMERICANISMS  109 

the  word  in  the  sense  of  to  think,  and  other 
instances  might  be  added.  In  view  of  this  it 
seems  not  a  little  curious  that  a  bit  of  Shake 
speare's  English,  in  the  use  of  an  excellent 
Saxon  word,  should  be  selected  above  all 
others  by  Englishmen  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury  to  brand  an  American,  not  merely  with 
his  nationality,  but  with  the  misuse  of  his 
mother-tongue.  Be  it  said  also  in  passing  that 
"  guess  "  is  a  far  better  word  than  "  fancy," 
which  the  British  are  fond  of  putting  to  a 
similar  service. 

Leaving  now  legitimate  words,  and  turning 
to  the  children  of  the  street  and  the  market 
place,  we  find  some  curious  examples,  not 
only  of  American  slang,  but  of  slang  which 
is  regarded  as  extremely  fresh  and  modern. 
Mr.  Brander  Matthews,  in  his  most  interest 
ing  article  on  that  subject,  has  already  point 
ed  out  that  a  "  deck  of  cards  "  is  Shakespea 
rian.  In  Henry  VI.  (Third  Part,  Act  V.,  Scene 
I.),  Gloucester  says: 

'  But  while  he  thought  to  steal  the  single  ten, 
The  king  was  slyly  fingered  from  the  deck." 

Mr.  Matthews  has  also  cited  a  still  more  re 
markable  example  of  recent  slang  from  the 
Sonnets — of  all  places  in  the  world! — where 


110  SHAKESPEARE  S    AMERICANISMS 

"fire  out"  is  apparently  used  in  the  exact 
colloquial  sense  of  to-day.  It  occurs  in  the 
1 44th  Sonnet : 

"  Yet  this  shall  I  ne'er  know,  but  live  in  doubt 
Till  my  bad  angel  fire  my  good  one  out." 

"  Square,"  in  the  sense  of  fair  or  honest,  and 
the  verb  "  to  be  square,"  in  the  sense  of  to  be 
fair  or  honest,  are  thought  modern,  and  are 
now  so  constantly  used  that  they  have  well- 
nigh  passed  beyond  the  boundaries  of  slang. 
If  they  do  so,  it  is  but  a  return  to  their  old 
place,  for  Shakespeare  has  this  use  of  the 
word,  and  in  serious  passages.  In  Timon  of 
Athens  (Act  V.,  Scene  V.),  the  First  Senator 
says: 

"  All  have  not  offended  ; 

For  those  that  were,  it  is  not  square  to  take 

On  those  that  are,  revenges." 

In  Antony  and  Cleopatra  (Act  II.,  Scene  II.) 
Mecsenas  says,  "  She's  a  most  triumphant 
lady,  if  report  be  square  to  her." 

Very  recent  is  the  use  of  the  word 
"stuffed,"  particularly  in  American  politics, 
to  denote  contemptuously  what  may  be  most 
nearly  described  as  large  and  ineffective  pre 
tentiousness.  But  in  Much  Ado  about  Noth- 


SHAKESPEARE'S  AMERICANISMS  m 

Act  I.,  Scene  I.)  the  Messenger  says,  "A 
lord  to  a  lord,  a  man  to  a  man;  stuffed  with 
all  honorable  virtues."  To  which  Beatrice  re 
plies,  "  It  is  so,  indeed  ;  he  is  no  less  than  a 
stuffed  man  :  but  for  the  stuffing, — Well,  we 
are  all  mortal."  Here  Beatrice  uses  the 
phrase  "  stuffed  man"  in  contempt,  catching 
up  the  word  of  the  messenger. 

"  Flapjack,"  perhaps,  is  hardly  to  be  called 
slang,  but  it  is  certainly  an  American  phrase 
for  a  griddle-cake.  We  must  have  brought  it 
with  us,  however,  from  Shakespeare's  England, 
for  there  it  is  in  Pericles  (Act  II.,  Scene  I.), 
where  the  Grecian — very  Grecian — fisherman 
says,  "  Come,  thou  shalt  go  home,  and  we'll 
have  flesh  for  holidays,  fish  for  fasting  days, 
and  moreo'er  puddings  and  flapjacks ;  and 
thou  shalt  be  welcome." 

"  Mad,"  in  the  sense  of  angry,  is  usually  re 
garded  in  England  as  peculiarly  American 
and  a  very  improper  use  of  the  word.  In 
Romeo  and  Juliet  (Act  III.,  Scene  V.),  Lady 
Capulet  says  to  her  husband,  "  You  are  too 
hot,"  and  he  replies,  "  God's  bread !  it  makes 
me  mad,"  which,  taken  in  connection  with 
Lady  Capulet's  phrase,  seems  to  bring  the 
word  "  mad "  clearly  within  the  American 
usage.  But  however  this  may  be,  it  is  certain 


112  SHAKESPEARE  S    AMERICANISMS 

that  in  Pepys's  time  "  mad  "  in  the  sense  of 
angry  was  a  common  colloquial  usage  (e.g., 
Pepys,  II.,  72).  This,  therefore,  is  again  one 
of  the  Americanisms  we  brought  with  us  from 
England. 

I  will  close  this  little  collection  of  Shake 
speare's  Americanisms  with  a  word  that  is 
not  slang,  but  the  use  of  which  in  this  country 
shows  the  tenacity  with  which  our  people  have 
held  to  the  Elizabethan  phrases  that  their  an 
cestors  brought  with  them.  In  As  You  Like 
It  (Act  I.,  Scene  I.),  Charles  the  Wrestler 
says,  "  They  say  many  young  gentlemen  flock 
to  him  every  day,  and  fleet  the  time  careless 
ly,  as  they  did  in  the  golden  world."  "  Fleet," 
as  a  verb  in  this  sense  of  "  to  pass"  or  "to 
move,"  may  yet  survive  in  some  parts  of  Eng 
land,  but  it  has  certainly  disappeared  from 
the  literature  and  the  ordinary  speech  of  both 
England  and  the  United  States,  except  as  a 
nautical  phrase.  It  is  still  in  use,  however,  in 
this  exact  Shakespearian  sense  in  the  daily 
speech  of  people  on  the  island  of  Nantucket, 
in  the  State  of  Massachusetts.  I  have  heard 
it  there  frequently,  and  it  is  owing  no  doubt 
to  the  isolation  of  the  inhabitants  that  it  still 
lingers,  as  it  does,  an  echo  of  the  Elizabethan 
days,  among  American  fishermen  and  farmers 


OF    TMt 

UNIVERSITY 

Of 


AMERICANISMS  113 

in  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury. 

In  tracing  a  few  Americanisms,  as  they  are 
called,  to  the  land  whence  they  emigrated  so 
many  years  ago,  I  have  not  gone  beyond  the 
greatest  master  of.  the  language.  A  little 
wider  range,  with  excursions  into  other  fields, 
would  furnish  us  with  pedigrees  almost  as 
good,  if  not  quite  so  lofty,  for  many  other 
words  and  phrases  which  are  set  down  by  the 
British  guardians  of  our  language  as  "  Ameri 
canisms,"  generally  with  some  adjective  of  an 
uncomplimentary  character.  But  such  fur 
ther  collection  would  be  merely  cumulative. 
These  few  examples  from  Shakespeare  are 
quite  sufficient  to  show  that  because  a  word 
is  used  by  one  branch  of  the  English-speaking 
people  and  not  by  another,  it  does  not  there 
fore  follow  that  the  word  in  question  is  not 
both  good  and  ancient.  They  prove  also 
that  words  which  some  persons  frown  upon 
and  condemn,  merely  because  their  own  par 
ish  does  not  use  them,  may  have  served  well 
the  greatest  men  who  ever  wrote  or  spoke  the 
language,  and  that  they  have  a  place  and  a 
title  which  the  criticisms  upon  them  can  never 
hope  to  claim. 

There  is  here  a  little  lesson  which  is  well 
8 


114  SHAKESPEARE  S   AMERICANISMS 

worth  remembering,  for  the  English  speech  is 
too  great  an  inheritance  to  be  trifled  with  or 
wrangled  over.  It  is  much  better  for  all  who 
speak  it  to  give  their  best  strength  to  defend 
ing  it  and  keeping  it  pure  and  vigorous,  so 
that  it  may  go  on  spreading  and  conquering, 
as  in  the  centuries  which  have  already  closed. 
The  true  doctrine,  which  may  well  be  taken 
home  to  our  hearts  on  both  sides  of  the  water, 
has  never  been  better  put  than  in  Lord  Hough- 
ton's  fine  lines: 

"  Beyond  the  vague  Atlantic  deep, 
Far  as  the  farthest  prairies  sweep, 
Where  forest  glooms  the  nerve  appal, 
Where  burns  the  radiant  Western  fall, 
One  duty  lies  on  old  and  young — 
With  filial  piety  to  guard, 
As  on  its  greenest  native  sward, 
The  glory  of  the  English  tongue. 

"  That  ample  speech  !     That  subtle  speech ! 
Apt  for  the  need  of  all  and  each  : 
Strong  to  endure,  yet  prompt  to  bend 
Wherever  human  feelings  tend. 
Preserve  its  force  ;  expand  its  powers ; 
And  through  the  maze  of  civic  life, 
In  Letters,  Commerce,  even  in  Strife, 
Forget  not  it  is  yours  and  ours." 


CHATTERTON 


CHATTERTON 

WE  have  the  high  authority  of  Major  Pen- 
dcnnis  for  the  statement  that  this  is  a  very  un 
charitable  world,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that,  in  practice,  success  succeeds,  while  failure 
goes  out  into  the  cold  air  of  neglect  and  for- 
getfulness.  Yet  as  human  nature  is  not  only 
complicated,  but  contradictory,  humanity  has 
a  great  deal  of  sentimental  pity  for  itself,  which 
it  is  fond  of  showing  in  various  ways.  How 
commonly,  for  example,  do  we  hear  it  said  of 
families  in  which  one  member  has  attained  dis 
tinction  and  success  that  some  other  member 
was  really  the  most  brilliant,  although  he  has 
never  come  to  anything  at  all,  perhaps  has  come 
to  even  worse  than  nothing.  There  is  probably 
no  truth  whatever  in  statements  of  this  kind, 
but  it  is  often  soothing,  nevertheless,  to  believe 
them.  It  is  the  same  with  those  who  die  very 
young.  Not  only  have  we  declared  as  a  maxim 
that  those  who  thus  die  are  beloved  of  the 
gods,  but  we  are  prone  to  believe  and  assert 


Il8  CHATTERTON 

that  they  are  or  would  have  been  the  superiors 
in  beauty,  character,  and  intellect  of  those  who 
have  the  misfortune  to  tamely  survive  and  live 
out  more  or  less  effectively  the  allotted  span 
of  life.  This  is,  after  all,  a  gentle,  kindly  sen 
timent,  at  which  we  may  smile,  but  with  which 
only  the  sourest  of  misanthropes  would  quarrel ; 
and  it  matters  little  whether  it  has  or  has  not 
the  further  merit  of  exact  truth.  But  when  one 
of  those  who  have  died  ere  their  prime  has 
really  given  signs  of  exceptional  promise,  when 
it  has  been  possible  to  believe  that  a  dawning 
genius  has  been  swept  away  by  envious  fate, 
then  imagination  comes  to  the  aid  of  pity,  and 
we  readily  make  a  marvel  of  him  whose  life  has 
been  untimely  cropped,  for  what  might  have 
been  is  not  tied  down  by  the  hard  facts  which 
fetter  what  is. 

To  early  deaths  we  owe  three  of  the  noblest 
poems  in  the  language  — "  Lycidas,"  "Ado- 
nais,"  and  "In  Memoriam."  Of  the  subject 
of  "  Lycidas "  we  know  only  that  he  was  a 
young  scholar  named  King,  and  that  Milton 
immortalized  his  memory ;  and  of  Arthur 
Hallam  but  little  more  than  that  he  was  a 
youth  of  rare  promise  and  a  friend  of  Ten 
nyson.  Keats,  young  as  he  was,  left  enough 
of  accomplished  work  to  take  him  out  of  the 


CHATTERTON  IIQ 

range  of  speculation  and  place  him  securely 
in  the  first  rank  of  great  English  poets.  But 
there  are  others  in  our  literature  beloved  of 
the  gods  who  did  not  have  Milton  or  Shelley 
or  Tennyson  to  mourn  for  them  in  imperish 
able  verse,  who  yet  have  appealed  strongly  to 
human  sympathy  and  imagination,  and  whose 
names,  at  least,  are  familiar  and  high-placed. 
Among  them  the  most  conspicuous  undoubt 
edly  is  Chatterton.  His  name,  indeed,  is  bet 
ter  known  than  that  of  many  men  who  have 
filled  large  places  in  our  literature;  and  there 
is  a  general  conviction  that  he  was  a  genius, 
although  it  is  doubtful  if  any  one  except  his 
editor  or  biographer  could  be  found  who  could 
quote  a  line  of  his  works.  Chattcrton's  fame 
has  come  primarily  from  the  events  of  his  own 
brief  life,  and  the  world  has  been  content  to 
take  his  genius  on  trust.  This  is  natural  enough, 
for  that  life-story  was  one  to  appeal  most  strong 
ly  to  both  our  feelings  and  our  imagination. 
He  was  a  mere  boy,  and  yet  he  had  perplexed, 
if  not  deceived,  the  literary  and  critical  world 
of  his  day  by  a  series  of  forged  poems.  He 
was  also  a  prolific  writer  apart  from  this.  He 
fought  a  desperate  battle  with  adverse  fate,  and 
died  in  misery,  by  his  own  hand,  before  he  was 
twenty.  The  dead  boy  on  his  miserable  bed 


120  CHATTERTON 

in  a  squalid  garret  has  been  made  familiar  to 
us  by  the  painter,  while  the  playwright  and  the 
actor  have  put  his  struggle  for  life  and  glory 
before  us  on  the  stage.  Every  one  knows  the 
name  and  the  story,  and  has  sighed  over  the 
picture  and  the  play.  Very  few,  probably, 
know  more,  and  perhaps  it  might  be  best  to 
end  there,  and  not  inquire  further.  Fate  dealt 
hardly  with  Chatterton,  and  the  fame  he  fought 
for  came  only  after  his  death.  He  certainly 
suffered  enough  to  have  it  given  to  him  freely, 
even  if  it  rests  merely  on  the  sad  and  romantic 
story  of  his  life.  Yet  one  hardly  likes  to  stop 
there,  after  all,  for  if  he  has  no  other  title  to 
remembrance  than  his  youth  and  death,  then 
his  literary  fame  is  but  notoriety  earned  by 
forgery.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  there  can  be 
discovered  in  what  he  wrote  the  clear  promise 
of  a  great  performance  in  the  future,  then  his 
forgeries  are  a  valuable  part  of  our  literature, 
instead  of  being  merely  the  wild  error  of  an 
ambitious  boy,  and  his  death  becomes  the 
tragic  end,  not  only  of  a  young  life,  but  of  a 
genius  which,  in  its  ripeness,  might  have  given 
joy  to  mankind.  To  his  writings,  so  well  ed 
ited  by  Mr.  Skeat  some  twenty  years  ago, 
we  must  look  for  the  answer  to  this  question ; 
and  they  deserve  examination,  not  only  to 


CHATTERTON  121 

satisfy  a   curious   inquiry,  but   for  their   own 
merits.* 

Those  merits,  it  must  be  confessed,  have  been 
disputed,  and  in  at  least  one  instance  by  one 
of  the  best  of  critics.  In  a  notice  of  Edgar 
Poe,  Mr.  Lowell  paused  a  moment  to  say  that 
he  "  never  thought  the  world  lost  more  in  the 
'  marvellous  boy,'  Chatterton,  than  a  very  in- 
genius  imitator  of  antiquated  dulness.  When 
he  becomes  original  (as  it  is  called),  the  interest 
of  ingenuity  ceases  and  he  becomes  stupid." 
This  uncompromising  criticism  always  made 
me  vaguely  wonder  whether  the  popular  tra 
dition  or  Mr.  Lowell  had  estimated  Chatterton 
rightly,  for  Mr.  Lowell  is  very  high  authority, 
and  he  also  had  that  exact  knowledge,  which 
is  rarely  the  possession  of  those  who  make 
and  repeat  popular  and  accepted  opinions.  It 
is,  in  fact,  hardly  too  much  to  suppose  that 
the  majority  of  possible  readers,  having  a 
wholesome  preference  for  their  own  tongue, 
have  turned  away  affrighted  at  the  hopeless 
jargon  of  Rowley,  and  taken  what  was  said 
of  Chatterton  wholly  on  trust.  No  doubt  it 

*    The    Poetical   Works  of    Thomas    Chatterton.      With 

an   essay  on  the    Rowley  Poems  by  Walter  Skeat,    and  a 

memoir  by  Edward  Bell.  London  :    George  Bell  &   Sons. 
1875- 


122  CHATTERTON 

is  also  true,  as  has  just  been  said,  that  the 
undeniably  precocious  powers  of  the  boy,  his 
strange  life  and  tragic  death,  have  given  a 
fictitious  interest,  not  only  to  him,  but  to  his 
unread  works.  Yet  it  must  also  be  remem 
bered  that  when  Mr.  Lowell  gave  his  opinion, 
neither  he  nor  the  world  had  had  an  opportu 
nity  to  read  Chatterton's  poetry  in  an  intelli 
gible  form,  and  so  judge  it  fairly.  This  oppor 
tunity  is  given  by  Mr.  Skeat.  The  "  Rowleian 
dialect,"  as  Mr.  Skeat  calls  it,  was  subjected 
by  him  to  a  rigid  examination,  which  resulted 
in  the  discovery  of  the  system  upon  which  it 
was  formed.  When  this  had  been  done,  it  then 
became  comparatively  easy  to  translate  the 
poems  and  give  them  to  the  world  in  an  intel 
ligible  version. 

</It  appears  that  Chatterton,  in  the  manufact 
ure  of  his  dialect,  proceeded  in  a  simple  way. 
From  Kersey's  or  Bailey's  dictionary  he  copied 
all  the  words  marked  O  (old),  with  their  mean 
ings,  in  reverse  order,  into  a  manuscript  book. 
For  instance,  Kersey  gives  "  cherisaunei  (O) 
—comfort,"  which  would  appear  in  the  note 
book  "  comfort — cherisaunei."  When  a  word 
thus  entered  was  susceptible  of  more  than  one 
meaning,  mistakes  would  be  likely  to  occur. 
For  example,  Kersey  has  "  lissed  (O) — bound- 


CHATTERTON  123 

ed,"  explained  as  "  encircled  by  a  list."  This 
would  be  entered  "  bounded — lissed."  Thus 
given,  bounded  might  mean  either  surrounded 
by  a  list  or  leaped,  and  with  the  latter  signifi 
cation  it  is  used  several  times  by  Chatterton. 
Another  error  of  a  somewhat  different  kind  is 
curious.  Kersey  has  "  heck  (O) — a  rock,"  a 
misprint  for  rack.  Chatterton  uses  it  with  its 
misprinted  meaning  of  rock.  Such  mistakes, 
which  abound,  proved  very  important,  for  they 
furnished  Mr.  Skeat  with  conclusive  proof  of 
the  correctness  of  his  results. .  Having  thus  got 
a  foundation  for  his  dialect,  Chatterton  enlarged 
it  in  three  ways:  by  taking  the  groundwork 
of  his  word  from  Kersey  and  altering  the  ter 
mination,  by  altering  the  spelling  of  a  word 
capriciously,  and  by  coining  words  at  pleasure, 
either  from  intelligible  roots  or  from  pure  im 
agination.  In  the  whole  vocabulary  there  is 
found  to  be  only  seven  per  cent,  of  genuine 
old  English  words  rightly  used.  The  spelling 
is  stolen  entirely.  It  is  the  debased  kind 
of  "Chevy  Chase,"  and  the  ''Battle  of  Ot- 
terbourn."  Mr.  Skeat,  after  stating  that  a 
language  on  this  system  may  be  readily  ac 
quired  in  a  few  weeks,  gives  an  amusing  in 
stance  of  the  ease  with  which  it  may  be  ap 
plied  : 


124  CHATTERTON 

"  Offe  mannes  fyrste  bykrous  volunde  wolle  I  singe 

And  offe  the  fruite  of  yatte  caltysned  tre, 
Whose  lethal  taste  into  thys  worlde  dydde  brynge 
Both  morthe  and  tene  to  all  posteritie,"  etc. 

The  system  and  spelling  were  easy  enough-; 
the  real  difficulty  was  to  supply  the  matter. 
This  Chatterton  did,  and  then  came  the  prob 
lem  of  editing  him  in  such  a  way  as  to  get  at 
the  poems  themselves.  Four  methods  of  solv 
ing  this  problem  occurred  to  Mr.  Skeat :  to  re 
print  the  old  text  with  old  notes  compiled 
from  former  editions ;  to  reprint  the  old  text 
with  sound  critical  notes ;  to  do  away  with 
needless  disguises  of  spelling,  and  reduce  the 
words  to  the  sufficiently  uniform  spelling  of 
the  fifteenth  century ;  or,  finally,  to  do  away 
with  needless  disguises  altogether,  and,  on  the 
correct  theory  of  the  poems  not  being  genu 
ine,  render  them  into  modern  English.  Of 
the  first  method  Mr.  Skeat  decided  there  had 
been  too  much  already;  that  the  second  would 
be  a  mere  infliction  on  the  reader;  and  that 
the  third  was  absurd,  as  the  poems  were  not 
genuine,  and  in  all  cases,  except  where  the  lan 
guage  was  practically  modern  English  (as  the 
"  Bristowe  Tragedie  "),  such  reduction  would 
have  been  impossible.  The  fourth  method 
proposed  was  therefore  boldly  taken,  and  the 


CHATTERTON  125 

poems,  with  a  few  exceptions,  rendered  into 
modern  English.  Oddly  enough,  the  diction 
was  improved  by  this  translation  and  the 
rhythm  rendered  more  melodious,  indicating, 
as  might  have  been  conjectured,  that  Chatter- 
ton  had  written  in  eighteenth  century  Eng 
lish  and  translated  into  "  Rowleian."  I  have 
sketched  here  only  the  results,  but  the  ingen 
ious  processes  employed  to  arrive  at  them  well 
repay  reading. 

Thus,  then,  after  a  hundred  years,  the  Row 
ley  Poems  were  at  last  given  to  the  world, 
stripped  of  all  disguises,  to  stand  or  fall  by 
their  own  merits.  The  work  has  proved  to 
have  been  worth  the  labor  expended  on  it  by 
the  editor.  Passages  of  beauty  which  were 
hidden,  together  with  a  mass  of  bad  lines, 
under  the  language  of  Rowley,  are  scattered 
through  the  poems.  Even  those  familiar  with 
Chatterton  will  pardon  the  quotation  of  a  few 
lines  in  their  modern  form  : 

"  When  Autumn  sere  and  sunburnt  doth  appear, 

With  his  gold  hand  gilding  the  falling  leaf, 
Bringing^up  Winter  to  fulfil  the  year, 

Bearing  upon  his  back  the  ripened  sheaf; 
When  all  the  hills  with  woody  seed  are  white, 
When  lightning  fires  and  gleams  do  meet  from  far 
the  sight ; 


126  CHATTERTON 

"  When  the  fair  apples,  red  as  evening  sky, 

Do  bend  the  tree  unto  the  fruitful  ground ; 
When  juicy  pears,  and  berries  of  black  dye 

Do  dance  in  air,  and  call  the  eyes  around  ; 
Then,  be  the  evening  foul  or  be  it  fair, 
Methinks  my  heart's  delight  is  mingled  with  some 
care." 

There  are  both  feeling  and  imagination  in 
these  lines,  uneven  as  they  undoubtedly  are 
in  execution.  The  passage  is  taken  from  the 
"  Tragedy  of  -/Ella,"  a  composition  chiefly  re 
markable  for  its  very  weak  construction  and 
the  absence  of  all  dramatic  elements.  Yet 
among  the  feeble  crudities  of  the  poem  there 
are  indications,  faint  though  they  be,  of  pas 
sion  and  power  in  the  following  lines: 

" &l. — My  better  kindnesses  which  I  did  do, 
Thy  gentleness  doth  represent  so  great, 
Like  mighty  elephants  my  gnats  do  shew; 
Thou  dost  my  thoughts  of  paying  love  abate. 
But  had  my  actions  stretched  the  roll  of  fate, 
Plucked  thee  from  hell  or  brought  heaven  down 

to  thee, 

Laid  the  whole  world  a  footstool  at  thy  feet, 
One  smile  would  be  sufficient  meed  for  me. 
I  am  love's  borrower,  and  can  never  pay, 
But    be    his  borrower    still    and    thine,  my  sweet, 

for  aye." 

In  passing  judgment   on   these   lines,  the  ex- 


CHATTERTON  127 

treme  youth  of  the  writer  must  be  remem 
bered.  That  Chatterton  was  little  more  than 
fifteen  when  he  wrote  this  passage  does  much 
to  atone  for  the  obvious  faults.  Yet,  besides 
•its  own  merits,  and  beyond  mere  external  re 
semblances,  the  poem  has  a  distinct  flavor  of 
the  great  Elizabethan  period.  This  quality  is 
apparent  in  all  the  poems,  and  is  of  interest 
because  it  shows  that  the  boy's  instincts  were 
true,  and  carried  him  back  past  the  age  of 
Anne  to  find  his  models  in  the  great  period 
of  English  literature. 

"The  Battle  of  Hastings,"  a  long,  dreary 
poem,  containing  a  combat  in  each  stanza, 
obviously  written  under  Homeric  influences, 
apparently  exhibits  nothing  but  Chatterton's 
unequalled  power  of  spinning  metred  and 
rhymed  lines.  Yet,  again,  in  all  this  waste  of 
verses,  we  find  on  examination  a  long  pas 
sage  descriptive  of  "  Kenewalcha  Fair,"  which 
is  a  striking  picture,  and  possesses  beauty 
of  imagery  and  language.  After  explaining 
who  Kenewalcha  was,  the  poet  describes  her 
as, 

"  White  as  the  chalky  cliffs  of  Britain's  isle, 
Red  as  the  highest  colored  Gallic  wine, 
Gay  as  all  nature  at  the  morning  smile, 

Those  hues  with  pleasaunce  on  her  lips  combine ; 


128  CHATTERTON 

Her  lips  more  red  than  summer  evening  skyen, 

Or  Phoebus  rising  on  a  frosty  morn; 
Her  breasts  more  white  than  snows  in  fields  that 

lien, 

Or  lily  lambs  that  never  have  been  shorn, 
Swelling  like  bubbles  in  a  boiling  well, 
Or  new-burst  brooklets   gently  whispering  in  the 
dell. 

"  Brown  as  the  filbert  dropping  from  the  shell, 

Brown  as  the  nappy  ale  at  Hocktide  game, 
So  brown  the  crooked  rings  that  featly  fell 

Over  the  neck  of  this  all-beauteous  dame. 
Gray  as  the  morn  before  the  ruddy  flame 

Of  Phoebus'  chariot  rolling  through  the  sky  ; 
Gray  as  the  steel-horned  goats  Conyan  made  tame, 

So  gray  appeared  her  featly  sparkling  eye  ; 
Those  eyes  that  oft  did  mickle  pleased  look 
On  Adhelm,  valiant  man,  the  virtues'  doomsday- 
book. 

"  Majestic  as  the  grove  of  oaks  that  stood 

Before  the  abbey  built  by  Oswald  king ; 
Majestic  as  Hibernia's  holy  wood, 

Where  saints  for  souls  departed  masses  sing; 
Such  awe  from  her  sweet  look  forth  issuing 

At  once  for  reverence  and  love  did  call ; 
Sweet  as  the  voice  of  thrushes  in  the  spring, 

So  sweet  the  words  that  from  her  lips  did  fall; 
None  fell  in  vain,  all  shewed  some  intent; 
Her  wordes  did  display  her  great  entendement. 

'  Taper  as  candles  laid  at  Cuthbert's  shrine, 
Taper  as  elms  that  Goodrick's  abbey  shrove, 


CHATTERTON  129 

Taper  as  silver  chalices  for  wine, 
So  taper  were  her  arms  and  shapey-grove. 

As  skilful  miners  by  the  stones  above 
Can  ken  what  metal  is  contained  below, 

So  Kenewalcha's  face,  y-made  for  love, 
The  lovely  image  of  her  soul  did  show; 

Thus  was  she  outward  formed ;  the  sun,  her  mind, 

Did  gild  her  mortal  shape,  and  all  her  charms  re 
fined." 

No  doubt  these  similes  are  many  of  them 
marked  by  youthful  faults,  and  very  grave 
faults  too,  yet  such  a  one  as 

"  Gay  as  all  nature  at  the  morning  smile," 

goes  far  to  redeem  other  errors.  These 
stanzas  have  been  taken  at  random  from 
many  equally  good  and  equally  deserving  ex 
amination.  The  excellences  occur  almost  en 
tirely  in  descriptive  passages,  as  is  certain  to 
be  the  case  with  so  young  a  writer,  but  it  may 
fairly  be  said  that  there  are  indications  of 
genius,  or  of  something  closely  akin  to  it. 

It  is  almost  mere  guess-work  to  attempt 
to  fix  Chatterton's  real  place  among  poets. 
It  can,  indeed,  only  be  approximated  very 
roughly  by  comparing  his  verses  with  other 
equally  youthful  productions.  Tried  by  this 
tes{ — and  any  other  would  be  manifestly  un- 
9 


130  CHATTERTON 

just — Chatterton  comes  out  very  well.  The 
poetical  blossoms  of  Cowley,  long  since  with 
ered,  are  insipid  to  the  last  degree,  and  the 
frigid  morality  of  Pope's  boyish  performances 
is  destitute  of  any  real  feeling.  One  is  forced 
indeed  to  believe  that  the  great  poet  of 
Queen  Anne's  reign  was  little  better  than  a 
prig  at  the  age  of  twelve.  The  "  Hours  of  Idle 
ness,"  Henry  Kirke  White's  verses,  the  lispings 
of  Moore,  all  these,  and  a  host  more,  show 
nothing  but  an  early  capacity  for  smooth  ver 
sification  ;  and  yet  some  of  the  writers  came 
to  great  results  and  lasting  fame  afterwards. 
Shelley  and  Keats,  who  both  wrote  verse 
while  very  young,  exhibit  widely  different 
powers  from  any  of  the  men  just  mentioned. 
Despite  the  metaphysical  speculations  which 
disfigure  "  Queen  Mab,"  passages  of  extraordi 
nary  beauty  give  no  uncertain  promise  of  the 
coming  glories,  while  the  sonnet  on  Chap 
man's  Homer  stands  alone  in  its  perfection 
among  boyish  productions  and  high  up  among 
the  great  sonnets  of  the  language.  Chatter- 
ton  more  nearly  resembles  Shelley  than  any 
of  the  others — not  in  quality  or  kind,  but  in 
the  way  in  which  his  powers  are  shown. 
Apart  from  his  marvellous  fecundity,  one 
finds  buried  in  the  mediaeval  debris  passages 


CHATTERTON  131 

of  real  beauty  and  strength  both  in  thought 
and  expression.  The  rarity  of  such  qualities 
in  juvenile  verses  entitles  Chatterton  to  a  high 
place  among  very  young  poets,  and  specula 
tion  may  therefore  fairly  say  that  in  the  future 
—never  reached — he  might  have  been  among 
the  first.  We  agree  with  Mr.  Lowell  that  the 
acknowledged,  or  "  original,"  poetry  was  poor 
enough,  and  the  reason  is  that  the  real  poet 
was  not  there,  but  in  the  imaginary  world 
which  the  boy  had  created  for  himself. 
Therefore  it  is  that  in  the  forgeries  we  find 
the  imagination,  the  richness  of  diction,  and 
the  occasional  beauty  of  thought  which  lift 
Chatterton  up  to  a  place  as  a  poet,  and  which 
are  almost  wholly  lacking  in  the  other  poems, 
where  he  was  forcing  himself  to  write  without 
having  his  heart  in  his  work. 

In  estimating  Chatterton,  it  ought  also  to 
be  taken  into  consideration  that  he  did  not 
form  one  of  the  regular  links  in  the  chain  of 
literary  development.  He  was  sent  into  the 
world  before  his  time.  With  the  exception 
of  Gray's  splendid  verse  and  a  few  poems  by 
Collins  and  Goldsmith,  it  was  a  period  of  dust 
and  ashes  in  poetry  when  Chatterton  came 
upon  the  stage.  The  school  of  poetry  which 
had  been  in  its  prime  at  the  beginning  of  the 


132  CHATTERTON 

century,  was  in  the  last  stages  of  dissolution. 
It  was  commonly  known  as  the  didactic  school 
of  poetry,  and  how  great  it  could  be  in  its  own 
way  Pope  had  shown.  But  the  art  of  sinking 
in  poetry  had  gone  on  rapidly  since  Pope's  day, 
and  it  was  reserved  to  the  latter  half  of  the 
same  century  to  justify  Canning's  celebrated 
definition  "  that  a  didactic  poem  was  so  called 
from  SiSdcr/ceiv,  to  teach,  and  TroiTjfjia,  a  poem, 
because  it  teaches  nothing  and  is  not  poeti 
cal."  No  period  of  decline  in  literature  is 
ever  strong  or  fruitful,  but  the  decadence  of 
such  a  school  as  this  was  naturally  more  than 
usually  barren.  Nature,  under  Queen  Anne, 
was,  at  best,  the  pretty,  trim  nature  of  Windsor 
Forest ;  in  later  days  she  became  a  painted,  ar 
tificial  creature,  with  not  even  youth  to  plead 
for  her.  Against  this  nature  of  form  and  fash 
ion  Chatterton  revolted.  From  him  comes 
the  first  lyric  note,  the  harbinger  of  the  great 
poetic  outburst  which  was  to  uplift  English 
poetry  again  at  the  end  of  that  century  and 
the  beginning  of  the  next.  But  the  world 
was  not  ready  for  him,  and  his  voice  fell  upon 
deaf  ears.  Chatterton's  genius  was  impris 
oned  by  conventionalities,  and  beat  its  wings 
wildly  against  the  bars  of  the  cage.  The  only 
thing  of  beauty  in  the  sluggish  life  of  the  dull 


CHATTERTON  133 

provincial  town  was  the  ancient  church  of 
St.  Mary.  To  this  shrine  the  eager  fancy  of 
the  boy  turned  and  clung ;  here  his  genius 
and  his  aspirations  found  an  outlet,  and,  re 
pulsed  by  the  every-day  world,  he  was  driven 
back  into  the  dead  world  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  old  church  was  a  centre  around  which 
Chatterton's  imagination  wove  a  story ;  and 
in  this  fabric  of  his  brain,  and  not  in  the  dull 
years  of  Bristol  or  the  fevered  months  of  Lon 
don,  we  find  the  real  history  of  his  life.  The 
good  burgher  Canynge,  the  poet-priest  Rowley 
and  his  friends,  the  knights  and  ladies  at  the 
tournaments,  the  inexorable  king — these  were 
the  characters  appearing  in  the  romance  which 
may  be  constructed  from  the  poems.  Here 
Chatterton  was  at  home,  here  all  was  smiling 
and  kindly.  Horace  Walpole  might  spurn 
him,  but  Rowley  would  not;  and  among  the 
creatures  of  his  fancy  Chatterton  found  rest 
and  peace,  while  outside  all  was  harsh,  bit 
ter,  and  unsympathetic,  with  poverty  for  a 
companion  and  suicide  for  friend.  To  judge 
Chatterton  as  he  was,  we  must  go  to  the 
Rowley  Poems,  for  there  the  real  life  was 
lived.  In  the  weary  years  in  Bristol,  in  the 
few  short,  mad  months  in  London,  the  boy 
was  acting  a  part.  It  is  this  distinction  that 


134  CHATTERTON 

makes  the  vast  difference  between  the  ac 
knowledged  and  the  Rowley  Poems.  Mr.  Skeat 
follows  Malone  in  thinking  that  the  African 
Eclogues  form  the  connecting  link  between 
the  forgeries  and  the  so-called  genuine  work. 
In  this  I  cannot  agree.  They  may  be  nearer 
than  the  others,  but  they  are  far,  very  far, 
from  the  poems  of  Rowley.  In  those  alone 
do  we  find  the  promise  of  a  worthy  perform 
ance.  The  promise  might  never  have  been 
fulfilled,  but  nevertheless  it  is  there.  There, 
too,  we  can  see  the  workings  of  an  eager,  pas 
sionate  nature,  creating  for  itself  a  realm  of 
thought,  where  the  boy  lived  his  real  life,  more 
beautiful  and  more  pathetic  even  than  the 
history  of  his  actual  existence  among  men, 
which  will  always  remain  one  of  the  great 
tragedies  of  English  literature.  It  was  the 
Rowley  Poerns,  muffled  in  the  clumsy  and 
pitiful  disguise  under  which  their  hapless 
author  hoped  they  might  steal  their  way  to 
fame,  which  caused  Wordsworth,  with  sure 
poetic  instinct,  to  give  to  Chatterton  his  most 
enduring  monument  in  the  famous  lines  which 
have  fixed  him  in  our  literature  as 


"The  marvellous  boy, 
The  sleepless  soul  that  perished  in  his  pride." 


DR.  HOLMES 


t 


DR.  HOLMES 


THE  year  which  witnessed  on  the  same  day 
the  birth  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Charles 
Darwin  seems  to  have  a  better  right  to  be 
called  annus  mirabilis  in  the  history  of  the 
English-speaking  people  than  that  year  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  II.,  of  blessed  memory,  which 
usually  bears  the  title.  But  the  great  states 
man  and  popular  leader  on  one  side  of  the  At 
lantic  and  the  great  man  of  science  on  the 
other  were  not  the  only  gifts  of  1809  to  hu 
manity.  In  that  year  were  also  born  Glad 
stone  and  Tennyson  and  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes.  A  short  time  ago,  perhaps,  we 
might  not  have  added  the  name  of  Dr. 
Holmes  to  this  brief  and  memorable  list. 
Death,  however,  changes  and  corrects  the  per 
spective  wonderfully.  Without  any  sugges 
tion,  or  even  thought,  of  comparisons,  whether 
odious  or  the  reverse,  it  is  now  easy  to  see 
that  Dr.  Holmes  rightfully  belongs  among 
the  remarkable  men  born  in  1809.  When  he 


138  DR.   HOLMES 

died,  words  were  spoken  about  him  in  lands 
and  languages  not  his  own,  which  in  a  flash 
showed  to  all  men,  and  especially  to  us  of  his 
own  country,  how  large  a  place  he  had  filled 
in  this  hurried  and  crowded  world.  Since 
then  has  come  Mr.  Morse's  admirable  biogra 
phy,  and  that  too  adds  to  his  fame  and  enables 
us  to  realize  more  clearly  than  ever  before 
how  great  a  space  in  literature  Dr.  Holmes 
occupied. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  trace  the  career  of 
Dr.  Holmes,  for  that  has  been  done  finally  and 
in  the  most  delightful  manner  by  Mr.  Morse. 
Dr.  Johnson's  hundred  years,  moreover,  have 
only  just  begun,  and  it  is  too  soon  to  say, 
"  Come,  let  us  judge  him,"  but  it  is  not  too 
soon,  perhaps,  to  look  for  a  moment  at  the 
work  he  did  and  the  place  he  filled,  and  to  ex 
press  our  gratitude  for  both. 

Dr.  Holmes  had  in  all  ways  a  singularly 
happy  and  successful  life.  Literary  fame  came 
early  and  remained  with  him,  ever  growing 
and  broadening.  In  his  old  age  he  did  not 
have  the  sore  trial  of  outliving  his  reputation, 
but  saw  it  at  the  end  as  fresh  and  flourishing 
as  in  the  beginning  and  with  all  the  promise 
of  long  endurance.  In  Massachusetts,  and  es 
pecially  in  Boston,  he  was  universally  beloved, 


DR.   HOLMES  139 

and  when  it  was  known  that  he  was  dead,  men 
felt,  despite  his  age,  as  if  there,  where  he  was 
best  known,  his  going  made  a  gap  in  nature 
and  took  from  them  something  which  was  as 
much  a  part  of  their  being  as  the  air  they 
breathed.  Such  a  life,  so  full  of  happiness  to 
others  and  to  himself,  so  crowded  with  all  that 
most  men  desire,  may  well  be  called  fortunate. 
Yet  the  word  is  not  wholly  apt  or  adequate. 
Such  a  life  is  not  all  a  matter  of  fortune.  It 
is  in  very  large  measure  due  to  the  man  him 
self.  Dr.  Holmes  owed  his  success  to  his  own 
gifts  and  to  their  wise  use,  but  he  also,  in  large 
measure,  owed  the  happiness  which  he  both 
enjoyed  and  imparted  to  his  cheerful  philos 
ophy  3n^  to  his  wide,  eager,  and  quick  sympa 
thies  with  all  that  touched  mankind. 

He  was  in  one  respect  a  very  rare  combina 
tion.  He  had  the  scientific  mind,  and  at  the 
same  time  he  was  a  poet  and  novelist.  As  a 
physician,  and  as  a  lecturer  for  many  years  upon 
anatomy,  he  won  distinction  and  success,  and 
every  form  of  scientific  thought  and  inquiry  had 
for  him  always  strong  attractions.  He  could 
think  and  could  impart  his  knowledge  with  the 
precision  and  accuracy  which  science  demands. 
Yet  with  this  strongly  marked  habit  of  mind 
were  joined  a  lively  imagination,  the  power  to 


140  DR.    HOLMES 

body  forth  the  shapes  of  things  unknown,  and 
a  most  delicate  fancy.  These  mental  qualities 
in  a  high  degree  of  excellence  are  rarely  found 
together.  Instances  have  not  been  wanting — 
like  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  for  example — of  men 
of  scientific  profession  and  training  who  had 
likewise  great  literary  gifts,  and  who  as  observ 
ers,  thinkers,  and  writers  take  high  rank.  But 
this  is  something  very  different  from  the  genius 
of  the  poet  and  romancer.  The  creative  imag 
ination  and  the  scientific  cast  of  thought,  joined 
as  they  were  in  Dr.  Holmes,  imply  an  extraor 
dinary  flexibility  and  versatility  of  mind.  In 
his  case,  too,  the  mingling  of  the  different  ele 
ments  never  affected  either  injuriously.  Imag 
ination  did  not  make  his  medicine  or  anatomy 
untrustworthy,  nor  did  his  scientific  tendencies 
make  either  his  verse  or  his  prose  cold  or  dry. 
His  wit  and  humor,  it  is  true,  gleamed  through 
his  lectures,  and  left  behind  them  to  a  gener 
ation  of  students  a  rich  harvest  of  stories  and 
traditions.  The  scientific  cast  of  thought,  on 
the  other  hand,  as  it  often  supplied  an  image 
or  a  metaphor,  may  possibly  have  had  some 
thing  to  do  also  with  the  unfailing  correctness 
of  the  poet's  verse.  Certain  at  least  it  is  that 
the  unusual  combination  of  these  widely  differ 
ing  qualities  of  mind  was  no  less  remarkable 


DR.   HOLMES  141 

than  the  fact  that  they  never  jarred  upon  each 
other,  and  never  warped  the  life's  work  in 
either  direction. 

His  fame,  of  course,  was  won  as  a  man  of 
letters,  not  as  a  man  of  science,  and  it  is  as  a 
man  of  letters  that  the  world  at  large  looks 
upon  him.  Here  his  good  fortune  was  with 
him  also.  He  came  at  a  good  time.  Before 
his  birth,  Jonathan  Edwards,  Benjamin  Frank 
lin,  and  Alexander  Hamilton  were  the  only 
American  writers  whose  work  had  found  a 
permanent  place  in  literature.  Two  of  these 
were  specialists,  one  in  theology,  the  other  in 
statecraft,  and  both  wrote  with  a  particular 
purpose.  Franklin  alone  had  added  to  litera 
ture  in  its  broad  sense,  and  he,  curiously 
enough,  although  neither  a  poet  nor  romancer, 
united  great  literary  talent  with  scientific  at 
tainments  of  the  highest  order,  as  well  as  with 
the  finest  arts  of  the  statesman  and  diploma 
tist.  But  one  writer  cannot  create  a  litera 
ture,  and  it  wasjeft  to  the  nineteenth  century 
to  show  that  Americans  could  make  a  distinct 
and  characteristic  contribution  to  the  great 
literature  of  the  English-speaking  people. 

Dr.  Holmes's  life  covered  the  whole  period 
of  this  literary  development  in  which  he  was 
himself  to  play  so  large  a  part.  Knickcr- 


142  DR.   HOLMES 

backer  s  History  of  New  York,  the  first  endur 
ing  work  of  this  period,  was  finished  in  1809, 
the  year  of  Dr.  Holmes's  birth.  He  was  a 
boy  of  six  when  "Thanatopsis  "  appeared,  the 
first  poem  of  the  new  country  which  was  to 
hold  a  place  in  the  higher  poetry  of  our  lan 
guage.  A  few  years  later  he  might  have  read 
Precaution,  that  pale  imitation  of  an  English 
novel  which  Cooper  sent  forth  to  deserved  fail 
ure,  and  then  he  could  have  rejoiced  in  the 
series  of  American  stories  by  the  same  author 
which  followed  hard  upon  it,  which  added  a 
new  figure  to  the  great  heroes  of  fiction,  and 
which  travelled  about  the  world  with  all  the 
delight  of  fresh  adventure  and  original  charac 
ters  in  their  pages. 

But  while  Dr.  Holmes's  birth  and  boyhood 
were  thus  coincident  with  the  appearance  of 
the  earliest  writings  of  Irving  and  Bryant  and 
Cooper,  he  himself  and  his  own  contempora 
ries  were  the  men  who  were  to  do  the  largest 
work  for  American  literature  in  the  century 
just  then  beginning.  Poe  was  born  in  the 
same  year  as  Holmes,  and  has  himself  a  high 
place  in  the  list  of  the  annus  mirabilis.  His 
weak  character  and  unhappy  life  obscured  his 
work  and  warped  men's  judgment,  but  his 
wild  genius  has  mounted  steadily  towards  its 


DR.   HOLMES  143 

true  place.  He  to  whom  so  little  was  given 
in  his  lifetime  has  now,  years  after  his  death, 
called  forth  the  admiration  of  English  critics 
and  excited  the  devotion  of  more  than  one 
French  poet.  At  this  moment  a  school  of  de 
cadents  and  symbolists,  who  bear  the  same 
relation  to  our  real  literature  that  Lyly,  with 
his  "  Euphues,"  bore  to  the  literature  of  the 
Elizabethans,  find,  as  they  think,  in  Poe,  who 
is  real  and  lasting,  a  master  and  forerunner,  as 
well  as  a  justification  for  their  own  little  pass 
ing  fashion. 

But  Poe  stood  far  apart  from  the  men  with 
whom  Dr.  Holmes  is  inseparably  connected. 
Hawthorne,  the  greatest  of  them  all  in  a  pure 
ly  literary  sense,  was  only  four  years  Holmes's 
senior.  Emerson  was  born  in  1803,  Longfel 
low  in  1807,  Whittier  in  1808.  Lowell,  who 
was,  perhaps,  more  intimate  with  Dr.  Holmes 
than  any  one  else,  was  only  ten  years  his  jun 
ior,  while  the  historians,  Bancroft  and  Prcscott, 
Motley  and  Parkman,  were  his  life-long  friends 
and  comrades  in  greater  or  less  degree.  They 
were  all  New  Englanders,  all  offspring  of  the 
old  Puritan  stock.  It  was  a  remarkable  group 
of  men ;  and  now  that  the  last  has  gone  we 
can  see  what  a  large  place  they  fill  in  Ameri 
can  literature,  and  how  much  of  all  that  we 


144  DR.   HOLMES 

like  to  think  of  as  lasting  in  that  literature  is 
their  work.  Poe,  who  did  not  love  them,  and 
who  felt  that  they  did  not  appreciate  the 
genius  which  he  knew  himself  to  possess,  was 
wont  to  rail  at  them  as  the  "  New  England 
school."  Some  of  his  keen  criticism  of  them 
and  others  was  both  true  and  penetrating,  but 
he  was  wrong  when  he  called  these  men  "  a 
school."  They  were  in  no  sense  "  a  school," 
for  they  differed  as  utterly  in  their  work  as 
they  did  in  their  purposes  and  lines  of 
thought.  They  may  have  shared  certain 
literary  opinions  and  they  were  undoubtedly 
friends,  but  "a  school"  cannot  exist  without 
teachers  and  pupils,  leaders  and  followers,  and 
these  men  were  equals,  working  each  in  his 
own  way. 

Of  all  the  group,  Dr.  Holmes,  although  he 
may  not  hold  the  highest  place  among  them 
for  literary  achievement,  was  the  most  various 
in  performance  and  the  most  versatile  in  facul 
ty.  We  all  think  of  him  first  as  a  poet.  There 
are  some  of  his  poems  which  are  in  every  one's 
mind,  which  live  in  our  memories,  and  rise  to 
our  lips.  In  a  recent  notice  in  some  English 
journal,  it  was  said,  with  a  faint  flavor  of  pat 
ronage,  that  certain  of  Dr.  Holmes's  poems 
were  in  all  the  anthologies.  The  critic  might 


DR.   HOLMES  145 

have  added  that  most  good  poems  in  the  lan 
guage  arc.  To  say  of  a  poet  that  his  verses  are 
in  all  the  anthologies,  and  on  the  lips  of  the 
people,  has  been  a  noble  praise  from  the  days 
of  Tyrtaeus  to  our  own.  Dr.  Holmes  has  won 
this  place.  Certain  of  his  poems,  like  "  The 
Chambered  Nautilus,"  "  The  Last  Leaf,"  or 
"Old  Ironsides,"  are  in  every  collection.  They 
have  passed  into  our  speech,  they  have  become 
part  of  our  inheritance;  and  greater  assurance 
of  remembrance  than  this  no  man  can  have. 

Dr.  Holmes  is  perhaps  thought  of  most  of 
ten  as  the  poet  of  occasion,  and  certainly  no 
one  has  ever  surpassed  him  in  this  field.  He 
was  always  apt,  always  happy ;  he  always  had 
the  essential  lightness  of  touch,  and  the  right 
mingling  of  wit  and  sentiment.  But  he  was 
very  much  more  than  a  writer  of  occasional 
verse,  and  his  extraordinary  success  in  this 
direction  has  tended  to  obscure  his  much 
higher  successes,  and  to  cause  men  to  over 
look  the  fact  that  he  was  a  true  poet  in  the 
best  sense.  The  brilliant  occasional  poems 
were  only  the  glitter  on  the  surface  of  the 
stream,  while  behind  and  beneath  them  lay 
depths  of  feeling  and  beauties  of  imagery  and 
thought  to  which  full  justice  has  not  yet  been, 
but  surely  will  be,  done.  '  He  felt  this  a  little 

10 


146  DR.  HOLMES 

himself ;  and  he  never  wrote  a  truer  line  than 
when  he  said  : 

"While  my  gay  stanza  pleased  the  banquet's  lords, 
My  soul  within  was  tuned  to  deeper  chords." 

In  his  poetry  and  in  his  mastery  of  all  the 
forms  of  verse,  he  showed  the  variety  of  tal 
ent  which  was  perhaps  his  most  characteristic 
quality.  He  had  a  strong  bent  towards  that 
kind  of  poetry  of  which  Pope  is  the  best  ex 
ample,  and  he  possessed  much  in  common 
with  the  author  of  the  Essay  on  Man.  He 
had  the  same  easy  flow  in  his  verse,  the  same 
finish,  wit  of  a  kindlier  sort,  the  same  wisdom 
without  any  attempt  at  rhymed  metaphysics, 
and  a  like  power  of  saying,  in  smooth  and  per 
fect  lines, 

"  What  oft  was  thought,  but  ne'er  so  well  expressed." 

The  metrical  form  which  is  so  identified  with 
Pope  always  seemed  to  appeal  to  Dr.  Holmes, 
and,  when  he  employed  it,  it  lost  nothing  in 
his  hands.  But  this  was  only  one  of  many  in 
struments  he  used.  He  was  admirable  in  nar 
rative  and  ballad  poetry,  the  poetry  of  energy, 
movement, and  incident,  of  which  "Bunker  Hill 
Battle  "  is  as  good  an  example  as  any.  He 


DR.   HOLMES  147 

ventured  often  into  the  dangerous  domain  of 
comic  poetry,  where  so  few  have  succeeded 
and  so  many  failed,  and  he  always  came  out 
successful,  saved  by  the  sanity  and  balance 
which  one  always  feels  in  everything  he  wrote. 
Of  a  much  higher  order  were  the  poems  of  dry 
humor,  where  a  kindly  satire  and  homely  wis 
dom  pointed  the  moral,  as  in  the  "  One  Hoss 
Shay."  But  he  did  work  far  finer  and  better 
than  all  this,  excellent  as  this  was  in  its  kind. 
He  was  not  one  of 

"  The  bards  sublime, 

Whose  distant  footsteps  echo  through  the  corridors 
of  time." 

Nor  was  he  one  of  those  who  seem  to  have 
sounded  all  the  depths  and  shoals  of  passion. 
I  do  not  think  he  thought  so  himself  or  ever 
was  under  the  least  misapprehension  as  to  the 
nature  of  his  own  work,  and  in  this  freedom 
from  illusions  lay  one  secret  of  his  success  and 
of  the  tact  which  never  failed.  I  remember  his 
saying  to  me  in  speaking  of  orators  and  writ 
ers,  that  once  or  twice  in  the  lives  of  such  men 
there  came  a  time  when  they  did,  in  the  boy's 
phrase,  "a  little  better  than  they  knew  how." 
I  naturally  asked  if  such  a  moment  had  ever 
come  to  him.  He  smiled,  and  I  well  recall 


148  DR.    HOLMES 

his  reply:  "Yes,  I  think  in  the  'Chambered 
Nautilus'  I  may  have  done  a  little  'better 
than  I  knew  how.'  "  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  in  that  beautiful  poem,  which  we  all 
know  by  heart,  there  is  a  note  of  noble  aspi 
ration  which  is  found  only  in  the  best  work. 
But  that  is  not  the  only  one  by  any  means. 
That  same  aspiring  note  is  often  heard  in  his 
verse,  and  there  are  many  poems  by  Dr.  Holmes 
filled  with  the  purest  and  tenderest  sentiment. 
Such,  for  instance,  are  the  lines  on  the  death  of 
his  classmate  and  friend,  Professor  Peirce ;  such, 
also,  is  the  "  Iron  Gate,"  the  tender  and  beauti 
ful  poem  which  he  read  at  the  breakfast  given 
him  on  his  seventieth  birthday.  Such,  too,  are 
his  lyrics,  which  include  much  of  his  best  work, 
and  which  have  in  a  high  degree  the  fervor 
and  the  concentration  which  the  best  lyric 
ought  always  to  possess. 

People  generally  link  his  name  with  a  mem 
ory  of  wit  and  humor,  for  he  had  both  in  large 
measure,  and  the  world  is  very  grateful  to  any 
one  who  can  make  it  laugh.  But  the  senti 
ment  and  aspiration,  which  are  of  higher  qual 
ity  than  wit  and  humor  can  ever  be,  and  which 
are  felt  most  often  in  the  poems  that  love  of 
man  or  love  of  country  have  inspired,  as  well 
as  the  perfection  of  the  poet's  workmanship 


DR.   HOLMES  149 

and  the  originality  of  his  thought,  arc  in  Dr. 
Holmes  too  often  overlooked.  This  perfection 
of  form  and  felicity  of  imagery  never  left  him. 
In  the  poem  on  the  death  of  Francis  Parkman, 
written  only  a  year  before  his  own  death,  when 
he  was  well  past  eighty,  there  is  neither  weak 
ness  nor  falling  off.  The  sentiment  is  as  true 
and  simple  as  ever,  the  flow  of  the  verse  as 
easy,  and  when  he  puts  England's  conquest  of 
France  in  Canada  into  the  single  line 

"  The  Lilies  withered  where  the  Lion  trod," 

we  need  no  critic  to  tell  us  that  the  old  happi 
ness  of  phrase  and  power  of  imagery  remained 
undimmed  to  the  last. 

Yet,  when  all  is  said  of  his  poetry,  of  which 
he  left  so  much  fixed  in  our  language  to  be 
prized  and  loved  and  remembered,  I  think  it 
cannot  be  doubted  that  the  work  of  Dr. 
Holmes  which  will  be  most  lasting  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table 
and  its  successors.  The  novel  of  Elsie  Ven- 
ncr  is  a  strong  and  interesting  book.  The 
story  holds  us  fast,  and  the  study  of  a  strange 
and  morbid  state  of  mind  has  the  fascination 
given  to  the  snakes  themselves.  Such  a  book 
would  have  made  the  fame  and  fortune  of  a 


150  DR.   HOLMES 

lesser  man.  But,  as  lasting  literature  in  the 
highest  sense,  it  falls  behind  the  Autocrat. 
There  the  whole  man  spoke.  There  he  found 
full  scope  for  his  wit  and  humor  and  mirth, 
his  keen  observation,  his  varied  learning,  his 
worldly  wisdom,  his  indignation  with  wrong, 
and  his  tenderest  sentiment.  To  attempt  to 
analyze  the  Autocrat  and  its  successors  would 
be  impossible.  It  is  not  the  "kind  of  literature 
that  lends  itself  to  analysis  or  criticism.  It  is 
the  study  of  many-sided  humanity  in  the  form 
of  the  essay  rather  than  the  novel,  although 
the  creation  and  development  of  character 
play  in  it  a  large  part.  Such  books,  with  the 
quality  of  enduring  life,  are  few  and  rare,  al 
though  many  have  attempted  them,  but  when 
they  really  have  the  vital  qualities  they  are  not 
of  the  fashion  of  the  day  which  passeth  away, 
but  for  all  time,  because  they  open  to  us  the 
pages  of  the  great  book  of  human  nature.  Mon 
taigne  and  Addison,  Goldsmith,  Sterne,  and 
Charles  Lamb  are  the  best,  perhaps  the  only 
masters  really  in  this  field,  for  the  exact  com 
bination  of  wit  and  humor,  of  pathos  and  wis 
dom,  of  sense  and  sentiment,  where  the  les 
son  of  life  runs  close  beneath  the  jest  and 
the  realities  tread  hard  upon  the  fancies,  is  as 
essential  as  it  is  rare.  To  this  small  and  chosen 


DR.   HOLMES  151 

company  Dr.  Holmes  belongs,  and  in  it  he 
holds  high  place.  All  the  qualities,  all  the  di 
versities  are  there,  and,  most  important  of  all, 
the  perfect  balance  among  them  is  there  too. 
The  style  runs  with  the  theme,  always  easy 
but  never  slovenly,  always  pure  and  good  but 
never  labored,  like  talk  by  the  fireside,  with 
out  either  affectation  or  carelessness,  while  over 
it  all  (and  this  is  stronger  in  Dr.  Holmes  than 
in  any  one  else)  hangs  an  atmosphere  of  friend 
liness  which  draws  us  nearer  to  the  writer  than 
any  other  quality.  Writings  such  as  these  have 
all  had,  perhaps  all  require,  the  air  of  learning 
as  evidence  that  to  keen  observation  of  man 
has  been  added  the  knowledge  of  many  books. 
It  is  to  be  feared  that  Sterne,  sham  as  he  was 
for  all  his  genius,  got  his  learning  by  wholesale 
theft  from  Burton.  But  the  learning  of  the 
others  was  genuine,  and  in  no  one  more  so 
than  in  Dr.  Holmes.  He  had  an  eager  love  of 
knowledge  of  all  kinds,  whether  new  or  old, 
which  carried  him  far  afield.  Like  Dr.  John 
son,  he  rarely  read  a  book  through  from  cover 
to  cover,  but  also  like  Dr.  Johnson,  he  ab 
sorbed  all  there  was  in  a  book  with  great 
quickness  and  remarkable  power  of  retention. 
He  has  said  in  print,  I  believe — I  remember 
certainly  his  saying  to  me — that  two  of  the 


152  DR.   HOLMES 

books  which  he  always  kept  by  him  for  odd 
moments  or  the  wakeful  hours  were  Montaigne 
and  Burton.  It  was  a  most  typical  choice  :  the 
Frenchman  of  olden  time  looking  out  on  life 
with  his  keen  vision  and  cheerful  cynicism,  and 
the  melancholy  Englishman  with  his  curious 
and  rambling  learning  strongly  tinctured  with 
quaint  medical  lore.  Dr.  Holmes,  who  loved 
them  both,  ranged  over  the  fields  that  both 
had  occupied,  as  well  as  over  others  they  had 
never  touched. 

It  is  in  his  novels,  to  which  I  have  only  allud 
ed,  that  the  critics  have  agreed  that  Dr.  Holmes 
had  least  success.  So  far  as  Elsie  Venner  is 
concerned,  I  am  not  of  this  mind.  But  it  is 
generally  overlooked  that  in  the  Autocrat  and 
its  successors  he  has  drawn  and  created  char 
acters  which  all  his  readers  love  and  remem 
ber,  and  that  he  has  also  described  in  these 
same  volumes  little  scenes  and  situations  which 
show  the  best  art  of  the  novelist.  Let  me 
quote  a  single  example,  the  familiar  scene  of 
the  "  Long  Path  "  on  Boston  Common,  in  the 
Aiitocrat  : 

"  At  last  I  got  out  the  question — '  Will  you  take  the 
long  path  ?'  '  Certainly,'  said  the  school-mistress, '  with 
much  pleasure.'  '  Think,'  I  said,  '  before  you  answer  ; 
if  you  take  the  long  path  with  me  now,  I  shall  in- 


DR.   HOLMES  153 

terpret  it  that  we  shall  part  no  more.'  The  school 
mistress  stepped  back  with  a  sudden  movement  as  if 
an  arrow  had  struck  her. 

"  One  of  the  long  granite  blocks  used  as  seats  was 
hard  by — the  one  you  may  still  see  close  by  the  Gingko 
tree.  '  Pray  sit  down,'  I  said.  '  No,  no,'  she  answered, 
softly, '  I  will  walk  the  long  path  with  you.'  " 

Surely  there  is  a  very  beautiful,  a  very 
charming  art  in  this  little  scene.  It  is  as 
good  as  the  death  of  Lefevre  in  Tristram 
Shandy,  and  has  much  the  same  qualities  of 
tenderness  and  reserve,  of  simplicity  and  sug 
gestion. 

I  have  spoken  very  inadequately  of  the  writ 
er,  not  at  all  of  the  man.  It  is  not  easy  for 
those  of  us  who  have  known  Dr.  Holmes  all 
our  lives  and  who  have  lived  so  near  to  him,  to 
write  of  him  with  the  proper  critical  discrim 
ination.  The  spell  is  yet  upon  us,  the  charm 
is  still  too  potent.  We  have  the  personal 
feeling  too  strongly  with  us  to  be  entirely  dis 
passionate  as  judges  or  critics  of  the  man  him 
self. 

But  Dr.  Holmes  had  one  personal  quality 
which  ought  not  to  be  passed  over  without 
mention  anywhere  or  at  any  time.  He  was  a 
thorough  American  and  always  a  patriot,  al 
ways  national  and  independent,  and  never  co- 


154  DR.   HOLMES 

lonial  or  cosmopolitan  or  subservient  to  foreign 
opinion.  In  the  war  of  the  rebellion  no  one 
was  a  stronger  upholder  of  the  national  cause 
than  he.  In  his  earliest  verse  we  catch  con 
stantly  the  flutter  of  the  flag,  and  in  his  war 
poems  we  feel  the  rush  and  life  of  the  great 
uprising  which  saved  the  nation.  He  was  in 
the  best  sense  a  citizen  of  the  world,  of  broad 
and  catholic  sympathies.  But  he  was  first  and 
before  that  an  American,  and  this  fact  is  at 
once  proof  and  reason  that  he  was  able  to  do 
work  which  has  carried  delight  to  many  peo 
ple  of  many  tongues,  and  which  has  won  him 
a  high  and  lasting  place  in  the  great  literature 
of  the  English-speaking  people  as  well  as  among 
that  small  and  beloved  company  of  authors 
with  whom  we  like  to  live  and  talk,  and  who 
are,  above  all  things  else,  our*familiar  friends. 

01       KO       ' 

rt*.*- 

6>>A  •  i 

u,     0-<UU' 

, 

. 


A  LIBERAL  EDUCATION 


Of    THE 

UNIVERSITY 

Of 


A   LIBERAL  EDUCATION* 

THE  most  splendid  chapter  in  modern  his 
tory  is  that  which  tells  of  the  rise  of  the  new 
learning  in  Europe  and  in  England.  It  has 
all  the  unspeakable  charm  of  spring,  and  all 
the  glory  of  awakening  life  which  Michael 
Angelo  drew  on  the  vaulting  of  the  Sistine 
Chapel  and  called  the  creation  of  Adam. 
Men  struggled  up  out  of  the  darkness  of  the 
Middle  Ages  with  much  sore  labor.  That  they 
won  through  as  they  did  was  due  to  men's 
bringing  up  from  their  hiding  places  all  that 
was  left  of  the  writings  and  the  art  of  Rome  and 
Greece.  In  the  fragments  of  these  two  great 
literatures  were  revealed  the  thought,  the  art, 
and  the  history  of  a  high  and  long-forgotten 
civilization.  The  discovery  roused  the  intel 
lect  of  Europe  from  its  long  sleep.  For  cen 
turies  this  awakening  was  called  the  revival  of 

*  An  address  delivered  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Soci 
ety  of  Harvard  University,  in  Sanders  Theatre,  Thursday, 
June  28,  1894. 


158  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

learning;  and  the  burst  of  genius  in  literature 
and  art  and  thought,  which  followed  hard  upon 
it,  has  never  been  equalled  in  richness  of  pro 
duction  or  in  exuberance  of  life.  Small  won 
der  is  it  that  mankind  felt  a  profound  grati 
tude  to  the  literatures  which  had  thus  led  them 
to  the  light.  It  was  natural  enough  that  under 
such  conditions  they  should  have  looked  upon 
learning  as  a  knowledge  of  the  classics,  and 
should  have  defined  a  classical  as  a  liberal 
education. 

v'Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  a  liberally  edu 
cated  man  was  one  educated  in  the  classics, 
and  a  man  who  did  not  know  the  classics,  no 
matter  what  his  other  acquirements  might  be, 
stood  without  the  sacred  pale.  This  definition 
of  a  liberal  education  has  lasted  to  our  own 
time,  and  technically  it  is  still  correct.  Yet  we 
all  know  that  there  has  been  a  widespread  re 
volt  in  practice  from  the  old  and  classic  theory. 
To  my  thinking,  the  pendulum  has  now  swung 
too  far.  Mere  knowledge  of  the  Latin  and 
Greek  literatures  no  longer  makes  nor  can 
make  a  liberal  education,  but  Greek  and  Lat 
in  nevertheless  ought  invariably  to  be  a  part 
of  it.  To  read  Greek  and  Latin  is  always,  and 
at  the  very  least,  an  accomplishment  and  a  re 
finement.  The  key  which  opens  the  door  to 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  159 

the  Iliad  should  be  forced  into  the  hand  of 
every  boy  seeking  the  higher  education.  Then 
we  may  part  company  with  the  old  system,  if 
you  will,  and  let  the  student  turn  the  key  or 
leave  the  door  locked,  as  he  pleases.  But  so 
far  as  the  threshold,  at  least,  of  those  great 
poems,  the  old  and  the  new  theories  ought  to 
travel  together. 

I  have,  however,  no  intention  of  entering 
upon  the  well-fought  ground  of  the  study  of 
the  classics.  My  purpose  here  is  very  different. 
It  is  to  speak  of  a  liberal  education  in  its  broad 
est  and  truest  sense,  without  any  reference  to 
recent  controversies  over  the  study  of  what 
are  misnamed  the  dead  languages,  just  as  if  the 
speech  of  Homer  could  ever  die  while  civiliza 
tion  lives.  To  understand,  however,  the  real 
relation  of  a  liberal  education  to  our  American 
life,  the  first  step  is  a  right  definition.  We  all 
know  the  conventional  or  classical  definition, 
but  we  must  have  the  true  one  as  well. 

One  of  the  best  known  and  least  read  of 
Queen  Anne's  men  is  Sir  Richard  Steele.  His 
good  and  evil  fortune,  his  kind  heart,  his  ready 
wit,  his  attractive  but  somewhat  imperfect 
character,  are  all  familiar  to  a  large  posterity 
with  whom  he  has  ever  been  popular.  But 
his  writings,  in  which  he  took  so  much  simple 


160  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

pride,  are,  it  is  to  be  feared,  largely  unread. 
The  book  of  quotations  contains  only  two 
sentences  of  his  writing,  and  one  of  these  can 
hardly  be  called  familiar.  But  the  other  fully 
deserves  the  adjective,  for  it  is  perhaps  the 
finest  compliment  ever  paid  by  a  man  to  a 
woman.  Steele  wrote  of  Lady  Elizabeth 
Hastings  that  "  to  love  her  was  a  liberal  educa 
tion,"  and  thus  rescued  her  forever  from  the  ob 
livion  of  the  British  Peerage.  He  certainly  did 
not  mean  by  this  that  to  love  the  Lady  Eliza 
beth  was  as  good  as  a  knowledge  of  Latin  and 
Greek,  for  that  would  have  been  no  compli 
ment  at  all,  unless  from  Carlyle's  friend  Dry 
asdust,  a  very  different  personage  from  the 
gallant  and  impecunious  husband  of  "  Prue." 
No,  Steele  meant  something  very  far  removed 
from  Latin  and  Greek,  and  everybody  knows 
what  lie  meant,  even  if  one  cannot  put  it  read 
ily  into  words. 

To  the  mind  of  the  eighteenth  century,  a  lib 
eral  education  entirely  classical,  if  you  please, 
so  far  as  books  went,  meant  the  education 
which  bred  tolerance  and  good  manners  and 
courage,  which  taught  a  man  to  love  honor 
and  truth  and  patriotism,  and  all  things  of 
good  report.  Like  the  history  of  Sir  John 
Froissart,  it  was  the  part  of  a  liberal  education 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  l6l 

"  to  encourage  all  valorous  hearts  and  to  show 
them  honorable  examples."  Such,  I  think,  we 
all  believe  a  liberal  education  to  be  to-day,  in 
its  finest  and  best  sense.  But  yet  this  is  not 
all,  nor  are  the  fields  of  learning  which  a  great 
university  opens  to  its  students  all.  Besides 
the  liberal  education  of  Steele  and  the  ample 
page  of  knowledge  which  a  university  unrolls, 
there  is  still  something  more,  and  this  some- 
thing  is  the  most  important  part. 

The  first  expression  that  we  get  as  to  the 
purposes  of  our  own  university  is  given  in 
New  England's  First  Fruits,  published  in  Lon 
don  in  1643.  It  is  there  said :  "  One  of  the 
next  things  we  longed  for,  and  looked  after, 
was  to  advance  learning  and  perpetuate  it  to 
posterity ;  dreading  to  leave  an  illiterate  min 
istry  to  the  churches  when  our  present  minis 
ters  shall  lie  in  the  dust." 

The  later  charters  of  the  college  all  pro 
posed  as  its  purpose  that  it  should  fit  persons 
for  the  church  and  for  civil  employment,  and  in 
these  old  phrases  is  the  kernel  of  the  whole 
matter.  It  was  the  object  of  the  college,  as  the 
Puritans  looked  at  it,  to  perpetuate  learning, 
which  was  at  once  the  badge  and  guide  of 
civilization,  but  it  was  also  and  equally  the 
object  of  the  college  to  fit  its  students  for  life. 


1 62  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

The  founders  of  the  college  mentioned  only 
one  field  of  work,  that  of  the  ministry.  It 
was  a  natural  limitation  enough  at  that  time. 
The  clergy  were  the  most  powerful,  and  to 
the  Puritan  mind  by  far  the  most  important, 
class  in  the  community,  and  therefore  this 
early  account  of  New  England  tells  us  that  the 
leading  object  of  the  college  was  to  maintain  a 
learned  ministry.  Fifty  years  later  the  views 
had  widened,  and  the  purpose  of  the  college 
is  then  defined  as  the  preparation  of  men  not 
only  for  the  church,  but  for  civil  employment, 
or,  in  other  words,  for  the  service  of  the  State. 
This  idea  has  gone  on  broadening  ever  since, 
until  now  the  true  conception  of  the  high 
est  duty  of  a  great  university  is,  or  ought 
to  be,  to  fit  its  scholars  for  the  life  which 
lies  before  them  when  they  go  out  into  the 
world.  Ordinarily  we  think  of  a  college  sim 
ply  as  a  place  where  men  receive  their  pre 
liminary  training  for  the  learned  professions, 
where  they  lay  the  foundations  for  a  life  of 
scientific  or  historical  investigation,  for  classi 
cal  scholarship,  or  for  the  study  of  modern 
languages  or  literature,  and  where  they  gather 
that  general  knowledge  which  constitutes  the 
higher  education,  even  if  the  student  leaves 
learning  behind  him  at  the  college  gate  to 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  163 

enter  on  a  life  of  action  or  of  business.  Yet 
in  reality  these  are  but  the  details  of  a  liberal 
education,  and  we  do  not  want  to  lose  sight 
of  the  city  on  account  of  the  number  of 
houses  immediately  around  us. 

The  first  and  the  most  important  function 
of  a  liberal  education  is  to  fit  a  man  for  the 
life  before  him,  and  to  prepare  him,  whatever 
profession  or  pursuit  he  may  follow,  to  be  a 
useful  citizen  of  the  country  which  gave  him 
birth.  This  is  of  vast  importance  in  any 
country,  but  in  the  United  States  it  is  of 
peculiar  moment,  because  here  every  man  has 
imposed  upon  him  the  duties  of  sovereignty, 
and  in  proportion  to  his  capacity  and  his 
opportunities  are  the  responsibilities  of  that 
sovereignty. 

A  liberal  education  is  a  great  gift  and  a  high 
privilege.  Every  one  who  is  fortunate  enough 
to  receive  it  ought  to  realize  what  it  has  cost. 
Many  men  obtain  it  in  the  most  honorable 
manner  by  great  personal  effort,  self-sacrifice, 
and  self-control.  They  are  sure  to  value  it 
aright.  But  the  cost  to  which  I  refer  is  great 
er  than  this.  These  vast  endowments  which 
have  founded  and  built  up  American  colleges, 
from  the  noble  and  often  pathetic  gifts  of  the 
early  settlers  down  to  the  millions  which  have 


164  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

been  given  in  our  own  time,  represent  the  de 
votion,  the  ambition,  the  toil,  and  the  thrift  of 
thousands  of  men  and  women  who  have  sought 
to  do  something  according  to  their  strength, 
that  those  who  came  after  them  might  have 
more  generous  opportunities,  and  that  civili 
zation  might  be  advanced.  Thus  it  is  that  a 
liberal  education  is  such  a  precious  and  dearly 
bought  gift  to  those  who  obtain  it.  Yet  it  is  not 
enough  even  that  the  men  who  receive  a  liberal 
education  should  appreciate  it.  It  is  far  more 
important  that  the  universities  which  dispense 
it  should  understand  what  it  means  in  its 
widest  sense,  and  should  direct  it  to  its  true 
purposes  ;  for  it  is  possible  so  to  pervert  it  that 
it  shall  be  of  no  value,  but  rather  an  injury,  not 
only  to  the  student  but  to  the  community,  and 
in  this  wise  become  hurtful  to  education  itself. 
If  a  man  is  not  a  good  citizen  it  boots  little 
whether  he  is  a  learned  Grecian  or  a  sound 
Latinist.  If  he  is  out  of  sympathy  with  his 
country,  his  people,  and  his  time,  the  last  re 
finement  and  the  highest  accomplishments  are 
of  slight  moment.  But  it  is  of  the  utmost  im 
portance  that  every  man,  and  especially  every 
educated  man,  in  the  United  States,  no  matter 
what  his  profession  or  business,  should  be  in 
sympathy  with  his  country,  with  its  history  in 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  165 

the  past,  its  needs  in  the  present,  and  its  as 
pirations  for  the  future.  If  he  has  this,  all  the 
rest  will  follow,  and  it  is  precisely  at  this  point 
that  there  seems  to  be  a  real  danger  in  our  uni 
versity  life  and  in  our  liberal  education.  The 
peril,  moreover,  is  none  the  less  real  because 
the  wrong  influence  is  subtle. 

We  are  apt  to  gather  here  at  the  end  of 
each  college  year  in  a  kindly  and  very  nat 
ural  spirit  of  mutual  admiration.  Those  of 
us  who  come  from  the  busy  outside  world, 
come  to  renew  old  memories,  and  to  brighten, 
if  only  for  a  moment,  the  friendships  which 
time  and  separation  would  darken  and  rust. 
We  are  in  no  mood  for  criticism.  Yet  it  is 
perhaps  as  well  not  to  let  the  mutual  con 
gratulations  go  too  far,  for  we  have  the  ad 
vantage  of  coming  from  without,  and  are  not 
likely  to  mistake  the  atmosphere  which  gath 
ers  about  a  university  for  that  of  the  world  at 
large.  A  lord  chancellor  of  England  said  some 
years  ago,  in  a  speech  in  Balliol  College  hall, 
"  I  am  glad  to  be  informed  from  preceding 
speakers  of  the  talents,  virtues,  and  distinction 
of  the  company  here  present.  Would  that  I 
were  fifty  years  younger  to  be  educated  under 
such  influences  as  these.  Had  I  that  good 
fortune  there  is  no  knowing  what  I  should 


l66  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

become.  It  is  owing  to  men  like  these  that 
Oxford  can  boast  that  the  tide  of  civilization 
flows  within  her  limits,  lower,  indeed,  but  not 
much  lower  than  in  the  world  around."  Some 
people  may  be  heretics  enough  to  think  that 
similar  observation  might  not  be  out  of  place 
sometimes  as  a  suggestion  at  least  at  the  com 
mencement  dinners  of  some  of  our  own  uni 
versities.  In  any  event,  the  sting  of  the  lord 
chancellor's  satire  lay  as  usual  in  its  large  leav 
en  of  truth.  The  danger  of  every  university 
lies  in  its  losing  touch  with  the  world  about  it. 
This  is  bad  anywhere.  It  is  worse  in  a  repub 
lic  than  anywhere  else. 

We  must,  however,  be  more  definite  again  if 
we  would  reach  any  result.  "Losing  touch" 
is  a  vague  expression;  "  lack  of  sympathy" 
is  little  better.  It  is  not  easy  to  put  my 
meaning  in  one  word,  but  perhaps  to  say 
that  the  first  duty  of  an  American  university 
and  its  liberal  education  should  be  to  make 
its  students  good  Americans  comes  as  near  to 
it  as  anything.  Still  we  must  go  a  step  fur 
ther,  for  many  persons  are  prone  to  sneer  at 
the  demand  for  Americanism,  as  if  it  meant 
merely  a  blatant  and  boastful  Chauvinism, 
employed  only  for  the  baser  political  uses. 
There  is  always  an  attempt  to  treat  it  as  if 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  167 

it  were  something  like  the  utterances  which 
Dickens  satirized  long  ago  in  the  persons  of 
Jefferson  Brick  and  Elijah  Pogram.  That  was 
certainly  neither  an  agreeable  nor  creditable 
form  of  national  self-assertion.  Yet  it  was  in 
finitely  better,  coarse  and  boastful  as  it  was, 
than  the  opposite  spirit  which  turns  disdain 
fully  even  from  the  glories  of  nature  because 
they  are  American  and  not  foreign,  and  which 
looks  scornfully  at  the  Sierras  because  they 
are  not  the  Alps.  The  Bricks  and  the  Po- 
grams  may  have  been  coarse  and  vulgar,  yet 
the  spirit  of  which  they  were  caricatures  was 
at  least  strong,  and  capable  of  better  things, 
while  the  other  spirit  is  pitifully  weak,  and 
has  no  future  before  it  except  one  of  further 
decay. 

True  Americanism  is  something  widely  dif 
ferent  from  either  of  these.  It  is  really  only 
another  word  for  intelligent  patriotism.  Loud 
self-assertion  has  no  part  in  it,  and  mere  criti 
cism  and  carping,  with  their  everlasting  whine 
because  we  are  not  as  others  are,  cannot  exist 
beside  it.  Americanism  in  its  right  sense  docs 
not  tend  in  the  least  to  repress  wholesome 
criticism  of  what  is  wrong;  on  the  contrary,  it 
encourages  it.  But  this  is  the  criticism  which 
is  made  only  as  the  first  step  towards  a  rem- 


1 68  A   LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

edy,  and  is  not  mere  snarling  for  snarling's 
sake.  Such  Americanism  as  this  takes  pride 
in  what  we  have  done  and  in  the  men  we 
have  bred,  and  knows  not  the  eternal  com 
parison  with  other  people  which  is  the  sure 
sign  of  a  tremulous  little  mind,  and  of  a  deep 
doubt  of  one's  own  position. 

To  all  which  the  answer  is  constantly  made 
that  this  is  merely  asserting  a  truism  and  a 
commonplace,  and  that  of  course  every  one 
is  intelligently  patriotic.  Of  the  great  mass 
of  our  people  this  is  true  beyond  question. 
They  are  thoroughly  patriotic  in  the  best 
sense.  Theoretically  it  is  true  of  all.  Practi 
cally  there  is  still  much  left  to  be  desired 
among  our  liberally  educated  men,  and  it  is  of 
this  precise  defect  among  those  who  have  a 
liberal  education  that  I  wish  to  speak. 

The  danger  of  the  higher  education  of  a 
great  university  is,  that  in  widening  the  hori 
zon  it  may  destroy  the  sense  of  proportion  so 
j  far  as  our  own  country  is  concerned.  The 
teachings  of  a  university  open  to  us  the  litera 
ture,  the  art,  the  science,  the  learning,  and  the 
history  of  all  other  nations.  They  would  be 
quite  worthless  if  they  did  not  do  so.  These 
teachings  form,  and  necessarily  form,  the  great 
mass  of  all  that  we  study  here.  That  which 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  169 

relates  to  our  own  country  is  inevitably  only 
a  small  part,  comparatively  speaking,  of  the 
great  whole.  This  also  is  quite  natural.  Our 
own  nation  is  comparatively  new.  Its  history 
is  not  long,  and  it  is  not  set  off  by  the  glitter 
of  a  court,  or  of  an  ancient  aristocracy.  Our 
literature  is  young.  Our  art  is  just  develop 
ing.  In  the  broad  sweep  of  a  liberal  educa 
tion,  that  portion  which  relates  to  the  United 
States  is  but  one  of  many  parts.  Hence  there 
is  a  tendency  to  lose  the  sense  of  proportion, 
to  underrate  our  own  place  in  the  history  and 
life  of  the  world,  and  to  forget  that  knowledge 
of  our  own  country,  while  it  excludes  nothing 
else,  is  nevertheless  more  important  to  each  one 
of  us  than  that  of  all  other  countries,  if  we  mean 
to  play  a  man's  part  in  life.  There  is  no  danA 
ger  that  liberally  educated  men  will  overvalue! 
their  own  country;  there  is  great  danger  that) 
they  will  undervalue  it.  This  does  not  arise 
from  any  lack  of  opportunity  here  to  learn 
our  history,  or  to  know  what  we  have  done  as 
a  people.  It  comes  from  a  failure  rightly  to 
appreciate  our  history  and  our  achievements. 
We  are  too  apt  to  think  of  ourselves  as  some 
thing  apart  and  inferior,  and  to  fail  to  see  our 
true  place  in  the  scale  of  nations.  Many  men 
of  liberal  education  either  expect  too  much  of 


1 70  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

the  United  States,  or  value  too  little  what  has 
been  accomplished  here.  As  has  just  been  said, 
we  are  a  young  nation — and  certain  fruits  of  a 
high  civilization  require  time  to  ripen.  It  is 
foolish  to  criticise  the  absence  of  those  things 
which  time  alone  can  bring  to  perfection,  and 
their  coming  is  retarded,  not  hastened,  by 
fault-finding.  On  the  other  hand,  we  are  apt 
to  overlook  what  really  has  been  done,  and  we 
often  fail  to  judge  rightly  because  we  use  super 
ficial  comparisons  with  some  other  contempo 
rary  people,  instead  of  measuring  ourselves  by 
the  just  standards  of  the  world's  history. 

Let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  last  hun 
dred  years  which  cover  our  history  as  a  nation. 
In  that  time  we  have  conquered  a  continent, 
won  it  from  the  wilderness  and  the  savages, 
by  much  privation,  and  much  desperate  and 
heroic  fighting,  unrecorded  for  the  most  part, 
with  nature  and  with  man.  Where  else  in  the 
nineteenth  century  will  you  find  such  a  con 
quest  as  that  ?  And  this  empire  that  we  have 
conquered  we  have  saved  also  from  being  rent 
asunder.  That  work  of  salvation  cost  us  four 
years  of  war.  Look  again  over  the  nineteenth 
century  and  see  where  you  can  find  a  war  of 
like  magnitude,  equal  to  ours  in  its  stake,  its 
fighting,  its  sacrifices,  or  in  the  noble  spirit  that 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  iyi 

it  evoked  among  our  people.  As  the  French 
traveller  said,  standing  among  the  graves  at 
Arlington,  "  Only  a  great  people  is  capable  of 
a  great  civil  war." 

I  will  not  touch  upon  the  material  develop 
ment,  unequalled  in  history,  which  has  gone 
hand  in  hand  with  this  conquest  of  waste 
places  and  fighting  tribes  of  Indians.  It  is 
enough  here  to  count  only  those  higher  things 
which  show  the  real  greatness  of  a  nation. 

Turn  to  the  men.  In  our  hundred  years  we 
have  given  to  the  world's  roll  of  statesmen 
Washington  and  Lincoln.  You  cannot  match 
them  elsewhere  in  the  same  period.  Are  there 
any  better  or  purer  or  greater  than  they  to  be 
found  in  the  tide  of  time?  Take  up  the  list 
of  great  soldiers.  Setting  aside  Napoleon, 
who  stands  all  apart  with  Caesar  and  Hanni 
bal,  what  nation  has  made  a  larger  gift  to 
the  leaders  of  men  in  battle  than  the  country 
which  added  to  the  list  the  names  of  Washing 
ton,  Grant,  and  Lee  ?  Since  Nelson  fell  at 
Trafalgar,  where  in  naval  warfare  will  you  find 
a  greater  chief  than  Farragut  ? 

In  those  wonderful  inventions  which  have 
affected  the  history  and  development  of  man, 
the  country  which  has  given  to  the  world  the 
cotton-gin,  the  telegraph,  the  sewing-machine, 


172  A   LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

the  steamship,  the  telephone,  and  the  armored 
ship  holds  a  place  second  to  none. 

Turn  now  to  those  fields  which  exact  the 
conditions  of  an  old  civilization — wealth,  lei 
sure,  and  traditions.  Even  here,  despite  the 
adverse  circumstances  of  national  youth,  there 
is  much  to  record,  much  to  give  fair  promise, 
much  in  which  to  rejoice. 

From  the  time  of  Franklin  and  his  kite,  we 
ever  have  done  our  share  in  scientific  work. 
We  have  developed  a  literature  of  our  own, 
and  made  it  part  of  the  great  literature  of  the 
English-speaking  race.  The  Luxembourg  has 
opened  its  jealously  guarded  doors  to  give 
space  and  place  to  five  American  painters,  and 
the  chisel  of  St.  Gaudens  has  carved  statues 
which  no  contemporary  elsewhere  can  rival. 
The  buildings  at  the  Chicago  Fair  came  as 
a  beautiful  surprise  and  a  great  achievement. 
They  showed  that  we  had  the  capacity  to 
take  rank  among  the  great  building  races  of 
the  earth. 

It  is  a  great  record  for  a  hundred  years.  Even 
if  we  glance  only  at  the  mountain  tops,  it  is  a  re 
markable  story  of  conquest  and  growth.  If  our 
universities  do  not  teach  us  to  value  it  rightly 
they  are  of  little  worth,  for  to  know  the  pres 
ent  and  to  act  in  it  we  must  have  a  just  knowl- 


A   LIBERAL    EDUCATION  173 

edge  of  our  place  in  history.  If  we  have  that 
knowledge,  we  shall  realize  that  a  nation  which, 
whatever  its  shortcomings,  has  done  so  much 
and  bred  such  men,  has  a  promise  for  the  fut 
ure  and  a  place  in  the  world  which  brings  a 
grave  responsibility  to  those  who  come  to  the 
inheritance. 

The  first  step,  then,  for  our  universities,  if 
in  the  true  spirit  of  a  liberal  education  they 
seek  to  fit  men  for  the  life  about  them,  is  to 
make  them  Americans  and  send  them  forth  in 
sympathy  with  their  country.  And  the  sec 
ond  step  is  like  the  first :  A  university  should 
aim  to  put  a  man  in  sympathy  with  his  time, 
and  make  him  comprehend  it,  if  we  would 
have  him  take  effective  part  in  the  life  of  his 
time.  As  the  danger  on  the  first  point  of  pa 
triotism  is  that  the  many-sided  teachings  of  a 
university  will  prevent  a  just  sense  of  the  place 
held  by  our  country,  so  on  the  second  point 
the  danger  is  that  dealing  largely  with  the 
past,  the  university  will  alienate  its  students 
from  the  present.  The  past  is  a  good  school- 
house  but  a  bad  dwelling-place.  We  cannot 
really  understand  the  present  without  the 
fullest  knowledge  of  the  past,  but  it  is  the 
present  with  which  we  are  to  deal,  and  the 
past  must  not  be  allowed  to  hide  it. 


174  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

There  is  a  visible  tendency  in  universities 
to  become  in  their  teachings  laudatores  tern- 
poris  acti,  and  this  tendency  is  full  of  peril. 
The  world  was  never  made  better,  the  great 
march  of  humanity  was  never  led  by  men 
whose  eyes  were  fixed  upon  the  past.  The 
leaders  of  men  are  those  who  look  forward, 
not  backward. 

"  For  not  through  eastern  windows  only, 

When  daylight  comes,  comes  in  the  light; 
In  front  the  sun  climbs  slow,  how  slowly, 
But  westward  look — the  land  is  bright." 

v  As  I  say  do  not  undervalue  your  own  coun 
try,  so  I  say  do  not  undervalue  your  own 
time.  The  nineteenth  century  is  dying.  It 
has  been  a  great  century.  It  has  seen  Water 
loo  and  Sedan  and  Gettysburg.  As  it  has 
passed  along  it  has  beheld  the  settlement  of 
Australia  and  South  Africa,  and  the  conquest 
of  the  American  continent.  It  has  replaced 
the  stage-coach  with  the  locomotive,  and 
united  the  continents  with  electric  cables.  It 
has  been  the  century  of  Lincoln  and  Bismarck, 
of  Wellington  and  Grant,  and  Lee  and  Moltke. 
Scott  and  Thackeray,  Dickens  and  Hawthorne 
have  woven  stories  to  rejoice  it ;  and  Brown 
ing  and  Tennyson  and  Victor  Hugo,  Lowell 


A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION  175 

and  Poe  have  been  among  its  later  poets.  It 
has  been  a  time  richly  worth  living  in.  Now 
in  its  closing  years,  with  the  new  and  un 
known  century  hard  upon  us,  it  is  more  than 
ever  a  time  worth  living  in,  full  of  marvellous 
voices  to  those  who  will  listen  with  attentive 
ears,  full  of  opportunity  to  any  one  who  will 
take  part  in  its  strifes,  fullest  of  all  of  pro 
found  interest  to  those  who  will  look  upon  it 
with  considerate  eyes. 

How,  then,  is  a  university  to  reach  the  re 
sults  we  ought  to  have  from  its  teachings  in 
this  country  and  this  period  ?  How  is  it  to 
inspire  its  students  with  sympathy  for  their 
country  and  their  time  as  the  most  important 
of  all  its  lessons?  Some  persons  may  reply 
that  it  can  be  obtained  by  making  the  uni 
versity  training  more  practical.  Much  has 
been  said  on  this  point  first  and  last,  but  the 
theory,  which  is  vague  at  best,  seems  to  me 
to  have  no  bearing  here.  It  is  not  a  practical 
education  which  we  seek  in  this  regard,  even 
if  it  was  the  business  of  a  university  to  give 
one,  but  a  liberal  education,  which  shall  foster 
certain  strong  qualities  of  heart  and  head. 
Our  search  now  and  here  is  not  for  an  educa 
tion  which  shall  enable  a  man  to  earn  his  liv 
ing  with  the  least  possible  delay,  but  for  a 


176  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

training   which   shall   develop   character    and 
mind  along  certain  lines. 

To  one  man  Harvard  gives  the  teaching 
which  fits  him  to  be  an  engineer ;  to  another, 
that  which  opens  to  him  law  or  medicine  or 
theology.  But  to  all  her  students  alike  it  is 
her  duty  to  give  that  which  will  send  them 
out  from  her  gates  able  to  understand  and  to 
sympathize  with  the  life  of  the  time.  This 
cannot  be  done  by  rules  or  systems  or  text 
books.  It  can  come,  and  can  only  come,  from 
the  subtle,  impalpable,  and  yet  powerful  influ 
ences  which  the  spirit  and  atmosphere  of  a 
great  university  can  exert  upon  those  within 
its  care.  It  is  not  easy  to  define  or  classify 
those  influences,  although  we  all  know  their 
general  effect.  Nevertheless  it  is,  I  think, 
possible  to  get  at  something  sufficiently  defi 
nite  to  indicate  what  is  lacking,  and  where 
the  peril  lies.  It  all  turns  on  the  spirit  which 
inspires  the  entire  collegiate  body,  on  the 
mental  attitude  of  the  university  as  a  whole. 
This  brings  us  at  once  to  the  danger  which  I 
think  confronts  all  our  large  universities  to 
day,  and  which  I  am  sure  confronts  that  uni 
versity  which  I  know  and  love  best.  We  are 
given  over  too  much  to  the  critical  spirit,  and 
we  are  educating  men  to  become  critics  of 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  177 

other  men,  instead  of  doers  of  deeds  them 
selves.  This  is  all  wrong.  Criticism  is  health 
ful,  necessary,  and  desirable,  but  it  is  always 
abundant,  and  is  infinitely  less  important  than 
performance.  There  is  not  the  slightest  risk 
that  the  supply  of  critics  will  run  out,  for 
there  are  always  enough  middle-aged  failures 
to  keep  the  ranks  full,  if  every  other  resource 
should  fail.  But  even  if  we  were  short  of 
critics,  it  is  a  sad  mistake  to  educate  young 
men  to  be  mere  critics  at  the  outset  of  life. 
It  should  be  the  first  duty  of  a  university  to 
breed  in  them  far  other  qualities.  Faith,  hope 
and  belief,  enthusiasm  and  courage  are  the 
qualities  to  be  trained  and  developed  in 
young  men  by  a  liberal  education.  Youth  is 
the  time  for  action  and  for  work,  not  for  criti 
cism.  A  liberal  education  should  encourage 
the  spirit  of  action,  not  deaden  it.  We  want 
the  men  whom  we  send  out  from  our  universi 
ties  to  count  in  the  battle  of  life  and  in  the 
history  of  their  time,  and  to  count  more  and 
not  less  because  of  their  liberal  education. 
They  will  not  count  at  all,  be  well  assured,  if 
they  come  out  trained  only  to  look  coldly 
and  critically  on  all  that  is  being  done  in  the 
world,  and  on  all  who  are  doing  it.  Long 
ago  Emerson  pointed  the  finger  of  scorn  at 

12 


178  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

this  type  when  he  said:  "There  is  my  fine 
young  Oxford  gentleman,  who  says  there  is 
nothing  new  and  nothing  true  and  no  mat 
ter."  We  cannot  afford  to  have  that  type, 
and  it  is  the  true  product  of  that  critical  spirit 
which  says  to  its  scholars,  "See  how  badly 
the  world  is  governed ;  see  how  covered  with 
dust  and  sweat  the  men  are  who  are  trying  to 
do  the  world's  business,  and  how  many  mis 
takes  they  make  ;  let  us  sit  here  in  the  shade 
with  Amaryllis  and  add  up  the  errors  of  these 
bruised,  grimy  fellows,  and  point  out  what 
they  ought  to  do,  while  we  make  no  mistakes 
ourselves  by  sticking  to  the  safe  rule  of  at 
tempting  nothing."  This  is  a  very  comfort 
able  attitude,  but  it  is  the  one  of  all  others 
which  a  university  should  discourage  instead 
of  inculcating.  Moreover,  with  such  an  atti 
tude  of  mind  towards  the  world  of  thought 
and  action  is  always  allied  a  cultivated  indif 
ference,  than  which  there  is  nothing  more  en 
ervating. 

And  these  things  are  no  pale  abstractions 
because  they  are  in  their  nature  purely  mat 
ters  of  sentiment  and  thought.  When  Crom 
well  demanded  the  New  Model,  he  said,  "A 
set  of  poor  tapsters  and  town  apprentices 
would  never  fight  against  men  of  honor." 


A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION  179 

They  were  of  the  same  race  and  the  same 
blood  as  the  cavaliers,  these  tapsters  and  ap 
prentices  ;  they  had  the  same  muscles  and  the 
same  bodily  form  and  strength.  It  was  the 
right  spirit  that  was  lacking,  and  this  Crom 
well,  with  the  keen  eye  of  genius,  plainly  saw. 
So  he  set  against  the  passion  of  loyalty  the 
stem  enthusiasm  of  religion,  and  swept  resist 
ance  from  his  path.  One  sentiment  against 
another,  and  the  mightier  conquered.  Come 
nearer  to  our  own  time.  Some  six  thousand 
ill-armed  American  frontiersmen  met  ten  thou 
sand  of  the  unconquered  army  of  Wellington's 
veterans  hard  by  New  Orleans.  They  beat 
them  in  a  night  attack,  they  got  the  better  of 
them  in  an  artillery  duel,  and  finally  they  drove 
back  with  heavy  slaughter  the  onset  of  these 
disciplined  troops  who  had  over  and  over  again 
carried  by  storm  defences  manned  by  the  sol 
diers  of  Napoleon.  These  backwoodsmen 
were  of  the  same  race  as  their  opponents,  no 
stronger,  no  more  inured  to  hardships  than 
Wellington's  men,  but  they  had  the  right 
spirit  in  them.  They  did  not  stop  to  criti 
cise  the  works,  and  to  point  out  that  cotton- 
bales  were  not  the  kind  of  rampart  recognized 
in  Europe.  They  did  not  pause  to  say  that  a 
properly  constituted  army  ought  to  have  bayo- 


180  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

nets  and  that  they  had  none.  Still  less  did 
they  set  about  finding  fault  with  their  leader. 
They  went  in  and  did  their  best,  and  their 
best  was  victory.  One  example  is  as  good 
as  a  hundred.  It  is  the  spirit,  the  faith,  the 
courage,  the  determination  of  men  which 
have  made  the  world  move.  These  are  the 
qualities  which  have  carried  the  dominion  of 
the  English-speaking  people  across  continents 
and  over  wide  oceans  to  the  very  ends  of  the 
earth.  It  is  the  same  in  every  field  of  human 
activity.  The  men  who  see  nothing  but  the 
lions  in  the  path,  who  fear  ridicule  and  dread 
mistakes,  who  behold  the  faults  they  may  com 
mit  more  plainly  than  the  guerdon  to  be  won, 
win  no  battles,  govern  no  states,  write  no  books, 
carve  no  statues,  paint  no  pictures.  The  men 
who  do  not  fear  to  fall  are  those  who  rise.  It 
is  the  men  who  take  the  risks  of  failure  and 
mistakes  who  win  through  defeats  to  victory. 
If  the  critical  spirit  govern  in  youth,  it 
chokes  action  at  its  very  source.  We  must 
have  enthusiasm,  not  indifference  ;  willingness 
to  subordinate  ourselves  to  our  purpose,  if  we 
would  reach  results,  and  an  imperfect  result  is 
far  better  than  none  at  all.  Abraham  Lincoln 
said  once,  speaking  of  Henry  Clay,  "A  free 
people  in  times  of  peace  and  quiet,  when 


A   LIBERAL    EDUCATION  l8l 

pressed  by  no  common  danger,  naturally  di 
vide  into  parties,  f  At  such  times  the  man  who 
is  of  neither  party  is  not,  cannot  be,  of  any 
consequence.  Mr.  Clay  was  therefore  of  a 
party."  This  which  Lincoln  said  of  politics 
merely  expresses  in  a  single  direction  the  truth 
that  a  man  cannot  succeed  who  is  a  mere  critic. 
Qlc  must  have  the  faith  and  enthusiasm  which 
will  enable  him  to  do  battle  whether  with  sword 
or  pen,  with  action  or  thought,  for  a  cause  in 
which  he  believes^  This  does  not  imply  any 
lack  of  independence,  any  blind  subservience 
to  authority  or  prejudice.  Far  from  it.  But 
it  does  imply  the  absence  of  the  purely  critical 
spirit  with  no  purpose  but  criticism,  which  dries 
up  the  very  springs  of  action. 

"  That  is  the  doctrine  simple,  ancient,  true ; 
Such  is  life's  trial,  as  old  Earth  smiles  and  knows. 
Make  the  low  nature  better  by  your  throes ; 
Give  earth  yourself,  go  up  for  gain  above." 

There  is  nothing  fanciful  in  all  this.  It  is 
very  real,  very  near,  very  practical.  You  can 
not  win  a  boat-race,  or  a  football-match  unless 
you  have  the  right  spirit.  Thews  and  sinews 
are  common  enough.  They  can  be  had  for  the 
asking.  But  the  best  will  not  avail  if  they  are 
not  informed  with  the  right  spirit.  You  must 


182  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

have  more  than  trained  muscles ;  you  must 
have  enthusiasm,  determination,  brains,  and 
the  capacity  for  organization  and  subordina 
tion.  If  the  critical  spirit  prevails,  and  every 
one  is  engaged  in  criticising,  analyzing,  and  de 
claring  how  much  better  things  would  be  if 
they  were  only  different  from  what  they  are, 
you  will  not,  you  cannot,  win,  other  things 
being  equal.  Differences  in  physical  qualities 
may  often  determine  results,  but  such  differ 
ences  come  and  go  like  luck  at  a  game  of  cards. 
But  if  the  critical,  indifferent  spirit  reigns,  it 
means  sure  and  continued  defeats,  for  it  saps 
the  very  roots  of  action  and  success. 

As  it  is  in  the  struggles  of  the  playground 
or  the  river,  so  it  is  in  the  wider  fields  of  seri 
ous  life.  If  the  college  merely  teaches  young 
men  to  tell  the  truth  and  keep  their  hands 
clean,  they  have  learned  two  lessons  which  are 
very  valuable  each  in  its  own  way.  But  if  this 
be  all,  the  result  of  the  teaching  will  be  many 
gentlemanly  failures  and  comparatively  few 
successful  men.  If  a  university  breeds  a  race 
of  little  critics,  they  will  be  able  to  point  out 
other  men's  faults  and  failures  with  neatness 
and  exactness,  but  they  will  accomplish  noth 
ing  themselves.  They  will  make  the  world  no 
better  for  their  presence,  they  will  not  count 


A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION  183 

in  the  conflict,  they  will  not  cure  a  single  one 
of  the  evils  they  are  so  keen  to  detect.  Worst 
of  all,  they  will  bring  reproach  on  a  liberal  edu 
cation,  which  will  seem  to  other  men  to  be  a 
hinderance  when  it  should  be  a  help. 

The  time  in  which  we  live  is  full  of  ques 
tions  of  the  deepest  moment.  There  has 
been,  during  the  century  now  ending,  the 
greatest  material  development  ever  seen — 
greater  than  that  of  all  preceding  centuries  to 
gether.  The  condition  of  the  average  man 
has  been  raised  higher  than  ever  before,  and 
wealth  has  been  piled  up  beyond  the  wildest 
fancy  of  romance.  We  have  built  up  a  vast 
social  and  industrial  system,  and  have  carried 
civilization  to  the  highest  point  it  has  ever 
touched.  That  system  and  that  civilization 
are  on  trial.  Grave  doubts  and  perils  beset 
them.  The  economic  theories  of  fifty  years 
ago  stand  helpless  and  decrepit  in  their  immo 
bility  before  the  social  questions  which  face 
us  now.  Everywhere  to-day  there  is  an  om 
inous  spirit  of  unrest.  Everywhere  there  is 
a  feeling  that  all  is  not  well  when  wealth 
abounds  and  none  the  less  dire  poverty  ranges 
by  its  side,  when  the  land  is  not  fully  pop 
ulated  and  yet  the  number  of  the  unem 
ployed  reaches  to  the  millions,  and  all  this  in 


184  A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION 

the  most  prosperous  country  in  the  world, 
with  the  greatest  promise  for  the  future. 
One  is  not  either  an  alarmist  or  a  pessi 
mist  because  he  recognizes  these  facts,  and 
it  would  be  worse  than  folly  to  try  to  blink 
them  out  of  sight.  I  believe  that  we  can 
deal  with  them  successfully  if  we  will  but 
set  ourselves  to  the  grave  task,  as  we  have  to 
the  trials  and  dangers  of  the  past.  I  am  sure 
that,  if  these  great  social  problems  can  be 
solved  anywhere,  they  can  be  solved  here  in 
the  United  States.  But  the  solution  will  tax 
to  the  utmost  all  the  wisdom  and  courage  and 
learning  that  the  country  can  provide.  What 
part  are  our  universities,  with  their  liberal  ed 
ucation,  to  play  in  the  history  that  is  now 
making  and  which  is  still  to  be  written?  They 
are  the  crown  and  glory  of  our  civilization, 
but  they  can  readily  be  set  aside  if  they  fall 
out  of  sympathy  with  the  vast  movements 
about  them.  I  do  not  say  whether  they 
should  seek  to  resist  or  to  sustain,  to  guide  or 
to  control  those  movements.  But  if  they 
would  not  dry  up  and  wither,  they  must  at 
least  understand  them.  A  great  university 
must  be  in  touch  with  the  world  about  it — 
with  its  hopes,  its  passions,  its  troubles,  and 
its  strivings.  If  it  is  not,  it  must  be  content 


A   LIBERAL    EDUCATION  185 

41  For  aye  to  be  in  shady  cloister  mewed, 
Chanting  faint  hymns  to  the  cold,  fruitless  moon." 

If  it  effaces  enthusiasm  and  breeds  critics,  it 
mu^t  be  content  to  gather  about  barren  altars 
on  which  the  fire  has  gone  out,  and  to  prac 
tise  rites  from  which  all  meaning  has  fled. 
Such  is  not  the  object  or  purpose  of  a  liberal 
education.  The  university  which  pretends  to 
give  a  liberal  education  must  understand  the 
movements  about  it,  must  see  whither  the 
great  forces  are  tending,  and  justify  its  exist 
ence  by  breeding  men  who  by  its  teachings 
are  more  able  than  all  others  to  render  the 
service  which  humanity  is  ever  seeking.  (To 
do  this  a  liberal  education  must  first  of  all 
mean  that  the  university  which  gave  it  sends 
forth  men  who  are  fit  for  life  because  they 
have  breathed  in  the  spirit  which  puts  them 
in  sympathy  with  their  country  and  their 
time.)  They  must  be  men  to  whom  the  great 
refusal  is  impossible  when  their  people  or 
their  country  call  upon  them  to  do  their  part 
either  in  war  or 


THE   HOME   OF  THE   CABOTS 


THE   HOME   OF  THE  CABOTS* 

EARLY  in  May,  1497,  a  little  vessel  with 
some  twenty  persons  on  board  set  sail  from 
Bristol  on  a  voyage  of  discovery.  This  year 
the  four  hundredth  anniversary  of  that  event 
has  been  duly  commemorated  at  the  place 
where  it  occurred.  Such  occasions  have  been 
much  the  fashion  of  late  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic,  owing  no  doubt  to  the  great  ad 
vance  in  historical  knowledge  and  to  the  in 
creased  interest  in  history  which  this  century 
has  witnessed ;  but  among  all  the  events  thus 
celebrated  there  is  perhaps  hardly  one  which 
more  deserves  commemoration  than  the  sail 
ing  of  the  little  Bristol  vessel  four  hundred 
years  ago.  "  We  derived  our  rights  in  Ameri 
ca,"  said  Edmund  Burke,  "  from  the  discovery 
of  Sebastian  Cabot,  who  first  made  the  North 
ern  Continent  in  1497.  The  fact  is  sufficiently 
certain  to  establish  a  right  to  our  settlements 

*  Reprinted  from  the  Nineteenth  Century  (May,  1897),  by 
the  kind  permission  of  Mr.  James  Knowles. 


I  go  THE    HOME    OF    THE    CABOTS 

in  North  America."  On  that  voyage  of  the 
Cabots  and  its  results  rested  the  English  claim 
to  North  America.  Under  that  claim,  suc 
cessfully  maintained,  Englishmen  planted  the 
colonies  which  reached  from  Georgia  to  Maine, 
and  which  by  their  growth  finally  enabled  the 
mother -country  to  drive  the  French  from 
Canada  and  make  the  continent  from  Mexico 
to  the  North  Pole  a  possession  of  the  English- 
speaking  race.  From  those  early  colonies 
have  come  the  United  States  and  the  Domin 
ion  of  Canada.  The  daring  voyage  of  discov 
ery  which  made  these  things  possible,  and 
gave  a  continent  to  the  English  race,  certainly 
deserves  to  be  freshly  remembered. 

Burke  really  stated  the  whole  case  in  the 
sentence  just  quoted,  but  he  made  one  error. 
The  commander  of  the  ship  and  the  leader  of 
the  expedition  was  not  Sebastian  but  John 
Cabot.  That  Sebastian  accompanied  his  father 
is  probable,  although  not  certain  ;  but  there  is 
no  doubt  whatever  that  John  Cabot  was  the 
originator,  chief,  and  captain  of  this  famous 
expedition,  so  small  when  it  sailed  away  from 
Bristol,  so  big  with  meaning  to  mankind  when 
it  returned  a  few  months  later. 

The  following  year  there  was  another  voy 
age  made  by  the  Cabots,  with  larger  results 


THE    HOME   OF   THE   CABOTS  191 

in  the  way  of  exploration  and  information  as 
to  this  new  world,  which  they  thought  part  of 
the  country  of  the  "Great  Cham."  Into  the 
story  of  these  memorable  voyages,  about 
which  volumes  have  been  written,  or  into  the 
interesting  career  and  long  life  of  Sebastian 
Cabot — for  John  Cabot  disappears  from  our 
ken  after  the  second  expedition  —  I  do  not 
propose  to  enter.  My  only  purpose  here  is 
to  try  to  show  who  these  men  were  who  ren 
dered  this  great  service  to  England  and  to 
the  world,  and  from  what  race  they  sprang. 

On  this  point  there  have  been  much  expendi 
ture  of  learning,  manifold  conjectures,  many 
theories,  and  abundant  suggestions;  but  the 
upshot  of  all  this  labor  has  been  merely  one  of 
those  historical  puzzles  or  mysteries  in  which 
the  antiquarian  mind  delights.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  the  explanation  is  very  simple,  and  possibly 
that  is  one  reason  why  it  has  been  overlooked. 
By  this  I  do  not  mean  that  any  one  can  tell 
where  John  Cabot  was  born,  for  no  one  knows, 
nor  has  any  evidence  on  that  point  been  pro 
duced.  If  some  inquirer  were  to  search  among 
the  records  of  a  certain  outlying  portion  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  as  has  not  yet  been  done, 
with  this  object  in  view,  something  might  be 
found  which  would  throw  light  on  John  Cabot's 


IQ2  THE    HOME    OF    THE    CABOTS 

birth  and  parentage.  So  far,  however,  there 
is  no  positive  evidence  whatever  in  regard  to 
either.  The  case  is  hardly  better  in  regard  to 
Sebastian,  for  when  he  was  trying  to  leave  the 
service  of  Spain  for  that  of  Venice,  he  told 
Contarini  that  he  was  born  in  Venice  but 
brought  up  in  England ;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  when  he  was  an  old  man  he  told  Eden 
that  he  was  born  in  Bristol,  and  carried  to 
Venice  by  his  father  at  the  age  of  four  years. 
The  conflict  between  Sebastian's  own  state 
ments  is  hardly  more  instructive  than  the  ab 
sence  of  all  information  in  regard  to  his  father. 
But,  although  it  is  impossible  to  fix  the  birth 
place  of  either  of  these  men,  it  is  still  possible 
to  do  that  which  is  perhaps  quite  as  important 
— determine  where  the  family  or  the  race  to 
which  they  belonged  originated. 

John  Cabot  is  always  spoken  of  as  a  Vene 
tian,  and  quite  properly  and  correctly,  but  he 
was  a  Venetian  by  naturalization,  not  by  birth. 
The  first  mention  of  his  name  in  history  occurs 
in  the  Venetian  archives,  where  we  find  the 
record  of  his  admission  to  citizenship  in  1476. 
Before  that  there  is  absolutely  nothing,  and 
the  Venetian  archives  simply  prove  that  John 
Cabot  was  not  born  in  Venice,  and  was  a  Vene 
tian  only  by  adoption.  We  know  that  he  mar- 


THE    HOME    OF    THE   CABOTS  193 

ried  a  Venetian  woman,  and,  from  Sebastian's 
contradictory  statements  about  his  own  birth 
place,  we  also  know  that  his  father  had  con 
nections  of  some  sort  in  England,  and  passed 
much  time  in  that  country  long  before  the 
famous  voyage  ;  for  on  that  point  both  Sebas 
tian's  versions  as  to  his  own  nativity  agree. 
Therefore  it  was  not  by  accident  that  John 
Cabot  went  to  England,  where  he  had  been 
in  the  habit  of  going,  and  received  from 
Henry  VII.,  in  1496,  the  patent  granted  to 
himself  and  his  three  sons,  Louis,  Sebastian, 
and  Sanctius,  for  the  discovery  of  unknown 
lands  in  the  eastern,  western,  or  northern  seas, 
with  the  right  to  occupy  such  territories.  The 
recent  authorities  speak  of  John  Cabot  as  prob 
ably  born  in  Genoa  or  its  neighborhood,  rest 
ing  apparently  only  on  Pedro  de  Ayala's  ref 
erence  to  him  as  a  Genoese  and  Stowe's  loose 
statement  that  Sebastian  was  "  Genoa's  son." 
All  this  is  mere  guesswork.  We  really  know 
nothing  about  John  Cabot's  birthplace  or  fam 
ily,  except  the  not  very  illuminating  fact  that 
he  was  not  born  in  Venice. 

Let  us  now  turn  from  the  particular  to  the 

general.     The  Cabots  were  a  numerous  race. 

We  find  them  scattered  all  over  Europe  ;  the 

name  varied  a   little  here  and  there,  but  al- 

13 


194  THE    HOME   OF   THE    CABOTS 

ways  easily  identified.  If  it  can  be  shown 
that  people  of  that  name  have  a  home  where 
they  have  lived  for  many  generations,  then 
the  problem  of  the  origin  of  the  Cabot  family 
is  solved.  In  Ireland  and  Scotland  there  have 
been  septs  or  clans  all  bearing  a  common 
name,  and,  in  tradition  at  least,  going  back  to 
a  common  ancestor.  It  needs  no  inquiry  to 
tell  us  where  the  O'Donnells  came  from,  al 
though  some  of  them  have  been  Spaniards  for 
several  generations.  We  know  the  origin  of 
the  MacMahons  and  MacDonalds,  of  France, 
without  much  research.  Wherever  one  meets 
a  Cameron  or  a  Campbell,  one  may  be  sure 
that  his  genealogy,  if  duly  followed  up,  will 
take  us  back  sooner  or  later  to  Scotland.  The 
same  law  holds  good  very  often  in  regard  to 
families  which  have  no  pretence  to  a  tribal 
origin  or  to  the  dignity  of  a  clan  or  sept,  espe 
cially  if  they  come  from  some  island  or  some 
sequestered  spot  on  the  main-land. 

Such  is  the  case  with  the  Cabots,  or  Chabots. 
The  island  of  Jersey  is  their  place  of  origin, 
and  the  residence  there  of  men  of  that  name 
goes  back  to  a  very  early  period.  In  Stowe's 
list  of  those  who  accompanied  William  the 
Conqueror  to  England  we  find  the  name  Ca 
bot  spelled  as  it  is  to-day.  The  bearer  was, 


THE    HOME    OF   THE   CABOTS  195 

no  doubt,  one  of  the  many  Normans  who  fol 
lowed  William  from  the  land  which  their 
Norse  ancestors  had  swooped  down  upon  a 
century  earlier.  Whether  the  particular  ad 
venturer  who,  according  to  Stowe,  came  over 
with  the  Conqueror  was  from  the  island  of 
Jersey  we  have  no  means  of  knowing.  But 
men  of  that  name  must  have  settled  in  the 
island  at  a  very  early  period,  soon  after  it  was 
granted  as  a  fief  to  Rolf  the  Ganger  by  Charles 
the  Simple.  Down  even  to  the  present  time 
many  of  the  people  in  two  Jersey  parishes 
arc  named  Cabot,  or  Chabot.  The  word  "Cha- 
bot "  means  also  a  kind  of  fish  and  a  measure, 
and  seems  to  be  peculiar  in  this  way  to  the 
island.  On  the  bells  of  some  of  the  churches, 
on  the  tombstones,  and  in  the  Armorial  of 
Jersey  the  name  and  arms  are  also  found,  and 
go  back  to  very  early  times.  The  arms,  in 
deed,  prove  the  antiquity  of  the  race  in  the 
island.  They  are  "  armes  parlantes,"  three 
fishes  (chabots),  with  the  pilgrim's  scallop  shell 
for  a  crest,  indicating  the  period  of  the  Cru 
sades.  The  motto  is  one  of  the  ancient  pun 
ning  mottoes,  "  Semper  cor,  caput,  Cabot." 
These  peculiarities  of  name  and  arms  indicate 
the  antiquity  of  the  family  and  also  its  identi 
fication  with  that  particular  spot  where  the 


196  THE    HOME   OF    THE   CABOTS 

fish  borne  upon  the  shield  are  indigenous  and 
known  by  a  particular  name  which  gives  them 
appropriateness  for  the  coat -of -arms.  The 
name  is  also  widely  diffused  in  France,  where  it 
is  found  in  many  noble  families,  including  the 
Rohans,  owing  to  the  mesalliance,  so  criticised 
by  Saint-Simon,  of  the  heiress  of  the  Rohans 
with  Henri  de  Chabot.  In  the  French  diction 
aries  it  is  usually  stated  that  the  family  is  an 
cient  and  comes  from  Poitou,  where  it  has  been 
known  since  1040,  and  no  doubt  many  of  the 
name  who  afterwards  reached  distinction  came 
from  that  part  of  France.  The  use  of  the  word 
in  common  speech  for  a  fish  and  a  measure 
indicates,  however,  very  strongly  that  the  orig 
inal  seat  of  the  race  was  on  the  Channel  island 
of  Jersey.  The  people  there  were  of  Norse 
descent,  for  the  first  settlements  of  the  Nor 
mans  were  made  along  the  coast  of  Normandy. 
It  was,  in  fact,  from  that  northern  coast  of 
France  that  the  Normans  spread  over  Eng 
land  and  Europe,  going  in  the  course  of  their 
wanderings  much  farther  afield  than  Poitou. 
But,  however  this  may  be,  it  is  clear  that  the 
Cabots  were  of  Norman  race,  and  that  they 
settled  first  on  the  coast  of  Normandy  with 
the  rest  of  the  adventurers  who  came  down  in 
the  wake  of  Rolf  the  Gansrer.  The  name  has  re- 


THE    HOME   OF   THE  CABOTS  197 

m.iincd  unchanged,  Cabot,  or  Chabot,  for  many 
centuries.  In  the  letters  patent  it  is  spelled 
exactly  as  it  is  to-day — John  Cabot.  The 
name  is  not  Italian,  nor  is  it  anglicized,  but  is 
the  Norman -French  name,  as  it  has  always 
been  known  both  in  the  Channel  Islands  and 
in  Poitou  for  more  than  eight  hundred  years. 
Tarducci,  the  latest  biographer  of  the  Cabots, 
in  his  zeal  to  prove  that  they  were  Italians, 
produces  names  from  Siena  and  elsewhere 
which  in  sound  have  a  resemblance  more  or 
less  distant  to  that  of  Cabot.  But  this  is  labor 
wasted.  The  name  in  Henry's  patent  was  too 
plain  and  familiar  to  have  been  an  anglicized 
version  of  some  Italian  patronymic,  and  the 
variations  on  the  names  of  the  discoverers  in 
the  various  contemporary  authorities  are  mere 
ly  efforts  to  make  the  name  Cabot  conform 
to  the  language  of  the  writer,  whether  he 
used  Spanish,  Italian,  or  Latin,  and  nothing 
more. 

There  is,  however,  much  better  testimony 
than  the  name  to  connect  the  navigators  with 
the  race  which  multiplied  in  the  Channel  isl 
and,  and  which  had  such  numerous  represen 
tatives  in  Poitou.  In  the  Armorial  de  la  No 
blesse  de  Langucdoc,  by  Louis  de  la  Roque,  it 
is  shown  that  Louis,  the  son  of  the  navigator, 


198  THE    HOME   OF    THE    CABOTS 

settled  at  St.-Paul-le-Coste,  in  the  Cevennes, 
and  had  a  son,  Pierre,  from  whom  the  family 
is  traced  to  the  present  time.  Pierre  left  a 
will,  in  which  he  stated  that  he  was  the  grand 
son  of  the  navigator  John.  The  decisive  point 
is  that  the  arms  of  this  family  are  those  of 
the  Jersey  Cabots  precisely  —  three  fishes, 
motto,  and  crest,  all  identical.  Therefore  the 
arms  of  Louis,  the  father  of  Pierre  and  son  of 
John  the  navigator,  are  the  Jersey  arms,  and 
unite  them  with  the  island  race.  These  same 
arms,  with  their  fishes,  are  found  among  all 
the  French  Chabots  quartered  with  those  of 
Rohan  and  the  rest.  They  exist  unchanged 
in  the  American  family,  which  came  directly 
from  Jersey  to  New  England  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  same 
name  and  the  same  arms  constitute  a  proof  of 
identity  of  race  before  which  the  contradic 
tory  accounts  of  contemporaries  of  the  discov 
erers,  void  as  they  are  of  any  affirmative  evi 
dence,  or  the  guesses  of  modern  investigators, 
are  of  little  avail.  The  arms  also  are  impor 
tant  in  showing,  as  has  been  already  suggested, 
that  the  family  started  from  the  island,  and 
not  from  Poitou ;  for  the  chabot  was  a  fish 
caught  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  islands,  a 
very  natural  emblem  to  take  there,  but  not  at 


THE    HOME   OF   THE   CABOTS  199 

all  a  likely  device  to  have  been   adopted   in 
Poitou. 

Just  where  John  Cabot  was  born,  as  was 
said  at  the  outset,  no  one  now  can  tell,  for  he 
was  a  wanderer  and  adventurer  like  his  remote 
Norse  ancestors,  and  left  no  records  or  papers. 
But  that  he  drew  his  blood  from  the  Nor 
man  race  of  the  Channel  Islands  his  name  and 
arms  seem  to  prove  beyond  doubt.  It  is  most 
probable  also  that  it  was  not  by  chance  that 
he  got  his  patent  from  an  English  king,  and 
sailed  on  his  memorable  voyage  from  an  Eng 
lish  port.  England  was  not  then  a  sea  power, 
nor  was  she  numbered  among  the  great  trad 
ing  and  commercial  nations  of  Europe.  Ven 
ice  or  Genoa,  Portugal  or  Spain,  offered  much 
larger  opportunities  and  greater  encourage 
ment  to  the  merchant  or  the  adventurer  than 
England.  Yet  John  Cabot  came  to  England 
for  his  letters  patent  and  set  out  from  Bristol 
on  his  voyage  of  discovery.  We  know  from 
Sebastian  Cabot's  statement  that  his  father 
had  relations  with  England,  and  was  much 
and  often  in  that  country.  It  is  not  going 
too  far  to  suppose  that,  when  he  had  made 
up  his  mind  to  enter  upon  his  voyage  of  dis 
covery  in  the  New  World,  he  came  back  to 
the  land  of  which  the  home  of  his  fathers,  and 


2OO  THE    HOME    OF    THE   CABOTS 

perhaps  his  own  birthplace,  was  a  part.  It  is 
certain  that  no  other  reason  for  his  doing  so  is 
given  in  any  contemporary  evidence. 

So  long  as  the  Cabots  performed  successful 
ly  the  great  work  which  it  fell  to  them  to  do, 
it  perhaps  does  not  matter  very  much  where 
they  were  born  or  whence  they  came.  Yet 
there  is  a  satisfaction  in  knowing  that  the 
strongest  evidence  we  have  shows  that  the 
men  who  gave  England  her  title  to  North 
America,  and  made  it  the  heritage  of  the 
English  -  speaking  people,  were  of  that  Nor 
man  race  which  did  so  much  for  the  making 
of  England,  and  sprang  from  those  Channel 
Islands  which  have  been  a  part  of  the  kingdom 
of  Great  Britain  ever  since  William  the  Con 
queror  seized  the  English  crown. 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

WE  have  in  our  Eastern  States  a  few  news 
papers,  with  a  small  number  of  persons  who 
presumably  read  those  newspapers,  which  are 
not  only  greatly  dissatisfied  with  things  Amer 
ican,  but  which  always  compare  our  short 
comings  with  the  bright  standard  of  perfection 
which  they  tell  us  exists  in  England.  One  of 
the  many  subjects  of  their  criticism  has  been 
the  conduct  of  our  elections,  and  here,  as 
usual,  they  are  fond  of  referring  us  to  Eng 
land,  in  order  to  show  us  by  that  shining  ex 
ample  how  far  we  are  from  an  ideal  condition. 
I  happened  to  be  in  England  in  the  summer 
of  1895,  while  the  last  general  election  was  in 
progress,  and  always  having  been  much  inter 
ested  in  all  matters  relating  to  the  conduct  of 
our  own  elections,  I  availed  myself  of  the  op 
portunity  thus  presented  to  examine  the  Eng 
lish  methods  which  have  been  held  up  to  us 
by  our  Anglo-American  critics  at  home  as  the 
standard  to  which  we  should  strive  to  attain. 


204  ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

The  charges  usually  brought  against  us  by 
these  critics  are  the  violence  and  disorder  of 
our  election  contests,  the  personalities  in  which 
we  indulge,  the  campaign  stories  set  afloat  to 
affect  votes,  and  other  sharp  practices  of  a 
like  nature  :  frauds  of  various  kinds  ia  regis 
tration  and  voting,  the  lavish  use  of  money, 
and  the  relentless  character  of  our  party  dis 
cipline.  I  studied  these  various  points  in  the 
English  elections  which  were  going  on  every 
where  around  me,  and  tried  to  make  myself 
familiar  with  all  those  features  which  Anglo- 
Americans  think  we  should  imitate.  I  intend 
here  to  give  very  briefly  the  results  of  my  ob 
servations. 

As  to  the  first  point  of  violence  and  dis 
order,  I  take  the  following  cases  as  reported 
in  the  London  Times,  in  order  to  show  the 
contrast  between  the  quiet  and  order  which 
prevail  in  England  and  the  violence  and  dis 
order  which  are  said  by  our  critics  to  char 
acterize  our  elections.  These  cases,  I  admit, 
present  features  very  different  from  anything 
that  occurs  in  American  elections.  On  that 
point  there  can  be  no  doubt.  Whether  we 
should  desire  to  imitate  them  is  another  ques 
tion,  which  I  will  not  now  discuss. 

Here  is  the  first  case  I  find  among  my  clip- 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS  205 

pings  from  the  Times :  "  Mr.  Disraeli,  M.P., 
Assaulted. — Mr.  Coningsby  Disraeli,  M.P.  for 
the  Altrincham  division  of  Cheshire,  was  as 
saulted  on  leaving  the  Conservative  Club  at 
Altrincham  after  the  close  of  the  poll  on  Mon 
day.  Mr.  Disraeli's  carriage  was  surrounded  by 
a  disorderly  mob,  which  a  force  of  Cheshire 
constabulary  were  unable  to  keep  in  check. 
Stones  and  bricks  were  thrown  as  the  carriage 
drove  away,  and  Mr.  Disraeli,  besides  being 
struck  with  a  stick,  was  momentarily  stunned 
by  a  stone  which  struck  him  on  the  back  of 
the  head.  The  crowd  afterwards  smashed  the 
windows  of  the  Conservative  Club,  and  a  mem 
ber  of  the  club  was  struck  by  a  stone  and  con 
veyed  to  the  hospital  unconscious.  The  street 
was  ultimately  cleared  by  the  police." 

Passing  from  Altrincham  to  Croydon,  we 
learn  that  "  Excitement  is  rising  in  Croydon. 
Some  of  Mr.  Hutchinson's  more  violent  parti 
sans  proceeded  to  the  front  of  the  Central 
Conservative  Club  in  North  End  on  Saturday 
and  indulged  in  hooting  and  yelling,  which 
were  kept  up  until  midnight.  Several  members 
of  the  club  attempted  to  address  the  gather 
ing,  but  were  pelted  with  eggs  and  apples  for 
their  trouble.  Yesterday  morning  both  Mr. 
Ritchie  and  Mr.  Hutchinson  attended  divine 


206  ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

service  at  the  parish  church,  and  it  is  stated 
that  the  Liberal  candidate,  while  walking  down 
the  aisle  on  his  way  out  at  the  conclusion  of 
the  service,  was  hissed  by  a  number  of  ladies, 
who  took  up  positions  on  either  side  of  the 
vestibule." 

The  next  relates  to  a  London  division : 
"  Tower  Hamlets  (St.  George's]. — In  conse 
quence  of  the  many  serious  disturbances  that 
have  occurred  in  this  division  during  the  prog 
ress  of  the  contest,  a  large  number  of  police 
were  yesterday  drafted  into  the  division,  with 
a  view  of  maintaining  order.  Mr.  Marks,  who 
was  struck  in  the  eye  Tuesday  night  with  a 
large  stone,  was  yesterday  driving  about  the 
constituency,  accompanied  by  his  wife,  with 
a  shade  over  the  injured  eye.  This  unpro 
voked  assault  has  caused  great  indignation 
throughout  the  division.  Several  petty  dis 
turbances  occurred  at  one  or  two  of  the  poll 
ing-stations,  but  owing  to  the  presence  of  the 
strong  force  of  police  nothing  serious  took 
place.  The  excitement  became  intense  as  the 
close  of  the  poll  approached,  each  party  exert 
ing  itself  to  the  utmost  in  order  to  secure  the 
attendance  of  the  electors  at  the  polling 
booths." 

Now  comes  a  case  with  a  touch  of  humor ; 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS  207 

but  the  polite  reply  of  Mr.  Hay  to  an  inter 
ruption  is  a  not  uninteresting  example  of  Eng 
lish  platform  manners  which  we  are  so  often 
told  our  campaign  speakers  ought  to  copy:  "  Of 
the  'dogs  of  war'  most  people  have  heard, 
but  the  dog  of  politics  is  new.  Hitherto  that 
friend  of  humanity  has  been  remarkable  for 
faithfulness,  but  he  would  be  a  bold  man  who 
would  answer  for  him  after  certain  political 
associations,  and  his  first  introduction  to  pub 
lic  affairs  has  not  been  promising.  There  was 
a  Unionist  gathering  at  Hoxton  Church  on 
Saturday,  attended  by  fully  two  thousand 
persons,  when  serious  disturbances  occurred, 
owing  to  a  respectably  dressed  man  forcing 
his  way  through  the  crowd  with  a  large  mas 
tiff  having  attached  to  his  collar  a  card  urging 
the  electors  to  *  Vote  for  Stuart.'  This  occa 
sioned  a  scuffle,  ending  in  a  free  fight,  which 
the  police  had  to  put  down.  The  Hon.  Claude 
Hay,  Unionist  candidate,  then  proceeded  with 
his  speech,  dismissing  personal  affronts  with  the 
declaration  that  he  did  not  care  a  button  for 
them,  and  describing  the  methods  of  his  inter 
rupters  as  *  cowardly  and  un-English.'  Point 
ing  to  one  of  the  disturbers,  he  said  he  could 
only  tell  that  gentleman  he  was  a  liar  when  he 
stated  that  he  would  not  carry  out  his  pledges." 


208  ENGLISH   ELECTIONS 

That  these  disturbances  were  not  mere 
horse-play  the  following  case  at  Luton  shows 
plainly  :  "  Bedfordshire  (Lutoii}. — Some  riot 
ing  took  place  at  Luton  on  Friday  night  after 
the  declaration  of  the  poll,  and  in  addition  to 
the  reading  twice  of  the  Riot  Act,  the  local 
authorities  found  it  necessary  to  send  for  fifty 
metropolitan  police.  A  local  solicitor,  who 
had  been  previously  identified  with  the  Liber 
al-Unionist  party,  published  on  the  eve  of  the 
poll  a  pamphlet  which  the  Conservatives  con 
sidered  reflected  upon  their  candidate,  Colonel 
Duke.  An  angry  mob  besieged  his  office, 
broke  his  windows,  and  attempted  to  gain  an 
entrance.  The  disturbance  continued  until 
one  o'clock,  when  the  combined  London  and 
local  police  charged  the  crowd  and  dispersed 
it.  At  Dunstable,  where  the  solicior  in  ques 
tion  lives,  the  mob  entered  his  house  and 
wrecked  the  furniture." 

At  Camborne,  where  Mr.  Conybeare  was 
defeated,  the  contest  was  heated.  A  gen 
tleman  told  me  that  he  happened  to  meet 
the  election  agent  of  Mr.  Strauss,  the  suc 
cessful  Unionist  candidate,  and  observing 
that  he  had  a  black  eye,  asked  him  how  he 
got  it.  The  agent  said  he  was  hit  at  Cam- 
borne,  and  that  there  were  twenty  men  in 


j*n^« 

>     Of   THC 

UNIVE*8ITY 

o* 

ENGLISH    ELECTIONS  209 

the   hospital   there    as    a    result    of    election 
fighting. 

On  August  Qth  Mr.  E.  Garnet  Man  wrote 
to  the  Times  that  he  and  Mr.  Gretton  were 
"  stoned  and  hustled,"  and  had  their  meeting 
broken  up  at  Church  Grcsley  and  Swadlincote 
by  a  mob  excited  by  the  harangues  of  a  Non 
conformist  minister. 

These  incidents  which  I  have  just  cited  were 
chronicled  in  the  newspapers,  but  seemed,  so 
far  as  I  could  observe,  to  pass  without  com 
ment  and  quite  as  matters  of  course.  There 
was  one  case,  however,  which  not  only  drew 
forth  a  good  deal  of  correspondence,  but  also 
excited  some  little  remark.  This  was  the 
East  Norfolk  election,  where  Mr.  Rider  Hag 
gard  was  the  Conservative  candidate.  He 
and  his  party  were  mobbed  at  Ludham  and 
Stalham.  He  had  ladies  with  him,  and  one 
of  them,  Mrs.  Hartcup,  was  seriously  injured 
by  stones  which  struck  her  in  the  head.  The 
party  took  refuge  from  the  arguments  of  their 
political  opponents  in  the  Swan  Hotel  at  Stal 
ham.  There  they  were  besieged  by  a  crowd 
for  several  hours,  and  were  only  rescued  by 
constables  armed  with  cutlasses,  who  dispersed 
the  mob.  Mr.  Haggard  wrote  with  his  accus 
tomed  force  and  eloquence  to  the  Times  about 


210  ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

the  almost  African  dangers  to  which  he  had 
been  exposed,  and  the  injuries  which  he  and 
his  party  had  received  from  the  attacks  of  the 
mob.  His  opponent,  Mr.  Price,  replied,  and  a 
long  controversy  followed.  Among  others 
who  took  part  in  it  was  one  who  signed  her 
self  "  A  Lady  Sufferer,"  and  who  seemed  dis 
posed  to  laugh  at  Mr.  Haggard  for  his  com 
plaints,  because  she  too  had  been  stoned  when 
canvassing  in  the  Liberal  interests  in  the  same 
division  some  years  before.  She  said,  "  I  took 
it  as  part  of  what  I  had  to  bear  in  the  battle 
of  politics,"  and  her  letter  exhibited  a  calm  phil 
osophy  in  regard  to  being  made  a  target  for 
stones  and  other  missiles  which,  I  think, 
would  hardly  be  shown  under  like  circum 
stances  by  American,  women,  even  by  those 
anxious  to  possess  the  suffrage. 

Mr.  Haggard's  misfortunes  were  not,  how 
ever,  the  only  incidents  of  the  East  Norfolk 
election.  In  the  division  of  which  North  Wal- 
sam  is  the  political  centre  a  Unionist  meeting 
was  held  in  the  market-place.  While  it  was 
going  on,  Lord  Wodehouse,  the  eldest  son  of 
the  Earl  of  Kimberly,  demanded  that  Mr.  John 
Gaymer,  who  presided,  should  come  down  from 
the  chair,  and  on  the  latter  gentleman's  dis 
playing  some  hesitation,  "  Lord  Wodehouse," 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS  211 

in  the  language  of  the  newspaper,  "  forcibly 
removed  him  from  the  rostrum."  Mr.  Gaymcr 
returned,  by  some  method  not  described,  to 
the  chair,  and  then  remonstrated  with  Lord 
Wodehouse,  who  continually  interrupted  him, 
and  also  called  out :  "  Come  down  and  have 
it  out  with  me.  I  will  fight  you  for  fifty 
pounds."  A  few  days  after,  Mr.  Gaymer  made 
a  complaint  against  Lord  Wodehouse  before 
the  magistrates,  and  the  noble  lord  was  fined 
five  pounds  for  assault.  The  matter  did  not, 
however,  end  here.  Some  time  after  the  elec 
tion  was  over,  the  Conservative  ministry  had 
Lord  Wodehouse  removed  from  the  Com 
mission  of  the  Peace,  of  which  he  was  a  mem 
ber.  I  think  I  may  go  so  far  as  to  say,  al 
though  I  have  no  desire  to  criticise  English 
election  methods,  that  Lord  Wodehouse  was 
guilty  of  what  has  been  called  in  this  country 
"  offensive  partisanship."  Yet  even  here,  I 
think,  it  would  be  thought  that  we  were  push 
ing  the  spoils  system  pretty  far  to  remove  a 
man  from  a  judicial  position  on  account  of  his 
political  conduct. 

This  practice  of  pelting  a  candidate  and  the 
ladies  who  accompany  him,  according  to  the 
English  custom,  is  apparently  a  common  di 
version  in  the  English  elections.  Sir  William 


212  ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

and  Lady  Harcourt  were  pelted  at  Derby,  and 
I  saw  many  allusions  to  similiar  instances. 
There  is  no  need,  however,  of  multiplying  ex 
amples.  I  have  given,  I  think,  enough  cases 
to  show  the  orderly  methods  of  political  dis 
cussion  in  England  which  our  Anglo-American 
critics  would  have  us  imitate. 

In  our  last  Presidential  election  (1896),  which 
was  one  of  extraordinary  excitement  and  pro 
duced  great  bitterness  of  feeling,  we  had  some 
instances  of  pelting  speakers  and  of  shouting 
them  down.  In  every  case  the  result  was  a 
reaction  in  favor  of  the  persons  attacked,  and 
the  assaults  were  denounced  by  the  news 
papers  without  distinction  of  party.  No  one  de 
fended  such  performances,  still  less  were  they 
treated  as  matters  of  course.  The  attack  with 
missiles  and  interruptions  upon  Mr.  Carlisle,  at 
Covington,  undoubtedly  injured  the  Democrats 
and  helped  the  Republicans  in  Kentucky, 
while  the  exploit  of  the  Yale  students  in 
howling  down  Mr.  Bryan,  at  New  Haven,  was 
generally  condemned  and  awakened  sympathy 
for  the  Democratic  candidate  for  the  Presi 
dency. 

I  now  come  to  the  matter  of  charges  made 
against  public  men  during  a  canvass  for  the. 
purpose  of  affecting  votes.     The  London  cor- 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS  213 

respondent  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  in  a  let 
ter  written  at  the  time,  summed  up  some  of 
the  campaigning  in  the  English  elections  of 
1895  as  follows:  "Campaign  literature  by  the 
ton ;  roorbacks  sprung  in  Ireland ;  press  ex 
tracts  showing  how  bad  an  opinion  Lord  Salis 
bury  once  had  of  Mr.  Chamberlain,  and  how 
cordially  that  dislike  was  reciprocated  by  the 
Birmingham  leader;  parallel  columns  brought 
into  play  against  one  Unionist  leader  after  an 
other;  and  criminations  about  the  purchase  of 
the  Ulster  votes  answered  by  recriminations 
about  the  government  cordite  contracts."  This 
list,  however,  does  not  cover  by  any  means  all 
the  charges  of  a  personal  character  put  for 
ward  during  the  canvass. 

Mr.  Benn,  who  was  running  in  one  of  the 
London  divisions,  was  attacked  by  his  oppo 
nents  because  his  insane  brother  had  in  a  fit 
of  madness  killed  their  father.  Even  in  the 
politics  of  "  our  violent  people  "  a  charge  of 
this  sort  for  political  purposes  would,  I  think, 
be  considered  cruel. 

But  attacks  of  this  kind  were  not  confined 
to  the  lesser  candidates.  It  was  freely  charged 
that  Sir  H.  Naylor-Leyland  had  changed  from 
the  Conservative  to  the  Liberal  side  because 
the  Liberal  government  had  given  him  a  bar- 


214  ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

onetcy.  As  to  the  truth  of  this  charge  I  have 
no  opinion  to  express.  I  only  know  that  Sir 
H.  Naylor-Leyland  was  recently  made  a  bar 
onet,  and  that  this  pleasant  accusation  against 
him  and  the  Liberal  government  was  freely 
made. 

Much  more  serious,  however,  was  the  charge 
against  Lord  Rosebery,  which  played  a  large 
part  in  the  campaign,  that  he  had  made  four 
peers,  in  consideration  of  the  gift  by  these  gen 
tlemen  of  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  to 
the  campaign  fund  of  the  Liberal  party.  Lord 
Rosebery's  secretary,  in  a  letter  to  the  Times, 
said  that  two  of  these  peerages  were  con 
ferred  upon  gentlemen  whose  merits  no  one 
could  question,  and  who  were  also  poor  men, 
and  that  the  other  two  were  given  in  pursu 
ance  of  an  arrangement  made  by  Mr.  Glad 
stone  with  which  Lord  Rosebery  had  nothing 
to  do.  There  were  persons  who  found  this 
answer  unsatisfactory,  and  the  matter  was 
much  discussed  both  in  the  press  and  on  the 
stump.  This  particular  charge,  moreover,  was 
not  made  merely  by  irresponsible  orators  and 
newspapers.  Mr.  Chamberlain  said  in  a  speech 
at  Birmingham,  on  August  3d  :  "  How  can  you 
grant  sincerity  to  a  man  who  in  one  breath 
denounces  the  House  of  Lords  and  seeks  to 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS  215 

abolish  it,  and  in  another  gives'  reason  for 
the  suspicion  that  he  has  been  selling  peer 
ages  to  the  highest  bidder."  I  have  no 
knowledge  whatever  as  to  the  foundation  of 
this  charge,  but  considered  merely  as  a  cam 
paign  attack  on  the  leader  of  one  of  the  two 
great  parties,  a  man  of  the  very  highest  char 
acter,  I  think  it  will  be  admitted  that  even  the 
violence  of  the  American  Presidential  election 
can  hardly  show  anything  more  serious.  In 
this  connection,  however,  there  is  something 
more  to  be  said.  Since  I  first  noted  this 
charge  and  followed  its  fortunes  as  it  was 
tossed  back  and  forth  in  the  excitement  of  an 
election  contest,  my  attention  has  been  called 
to  some  other  cases  which  lead  me  to  be 
lieve  that  the  attack  on  Lord  Rosebery  and 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  not  so  unusual  nor  the 
charge  itself  regarded  in  England  as  so  mon 
strous  as  I  had  supposed.  In  the  Spectator  for 
May  23,  1896,  occurs  the  following  statement: 
"  Lord  Salisbury  was  not  distributing  them 
eccentrically,  but  according  to  the  regular  cus 
tom,  taking  wealthy  squires  like  Mr.  E.  Hen- 
eage  and  Colonel  Malcolm,  of  Poltalloch,  for 
his  peerages;  and  giving  baronetcies  to  Mr. 
R.  U.  P.  Fitzgerald,  Mr.  O.  Dalgleish,  Mr. 
Lewis  Mclver,  Mr.  J.  Verdie,  and  Mr.  C. 


2l6  ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

Cave,  because  they  are  wealthy  men  who 
have  done  service  to  the  party."  If  this  sort 
of  thing  is  the  "  regular  custom,"  the  charge 
against  Lord  Rosebery  does  not  seem  very 
serious  material  for  a  party  attack,  and  one 
cannot  see  why  it  was  pressed  unless  the  sum 
supposed  to  have  been  paid  for  those  peer 
ages  was  so  large  as  to  be  thought  exorbitant. 
If  this  practice  of  giving  peerages  or  titles  in 
return  for  contributions  for  political  purposes 
is  the  "  regular  custom,"  why  is  the  American 
habit  of  appointment  to  certain  public  offices 
outside  the  classified  places  for  political  and 
party  services  so  monstrous  and  so  painful  to 
our  English  critics  and  their  followers  here? 
Colonel  Higginson,  from  one  of  whose  delight 
ful  essays*  I  have,  in  the  language  of  the  wise, 
conveyed  this  extract  from  the  Spectator,  per 
tinently  inquires  how  this  system  of  bartering 
peerages  differs  from  that  of  Tammany,  ex 
cept  that  it  is  more  gilded  and  veneered. 
The  most  that  a  man  gets  in  the  United 
States  is  a  temporary  office  with  such  dis 
tinction  as  it  carries  and  a  very  modest  sal 
ary.  In  England  the  rich  party-worker  gets 
an  hereditary  dignity,  which  helps  his  children, 

*  Book  and  Heart. 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS  217 

at  least,  to  an  assured  social  position ;  and  if 
a  peerage,  to  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords. 
The  money  may  go,  but  the  peerage  and  the 
social  position  remain.  I  am  not  concerned 
here  with  the  ethics  of  either  method.  I  mere 
ly  wish  to  point  out  that  in  principle  the  sys 
tem  of  rewarding  political  supporters,  party- 
workers,  and  subscribers  on  one  side  of  the 
Atlantic  does  not  differ  at  all  from  that  in 
vogue  on  the  other,  except  that  the  English 
give  higher  prizes  and  cover  the  transaction 
under  a  name  of  more  lofty  sound. 

As  to  the  point  of  illegal  practices  at  regis 
tration  and  elections,  I  found  that  they  were 
not  unknown  in  England.  In  Durham,  where 
the  seat  was  won  by  one  vote,  it  appeared 
that  the  name  of  a  man  who  was  in  jail  at 
the  time  had  been  voted  upon,  and  it  was 
freely  charged  that  the  names  of  men  who 
were  dead  were  used  for  the  same  purpose. 
This  election,  I  believe,  was  to  be  contested. 
I  saw  it  stated  in  the  Times  that  a  man  was 
charged  with  personation  at  Birkcnhead,  and 
from  a  single  issue  of  the  same  newspaper  I 
take  the  following  cases : 

At  Hartlepool,  where  the  question  of  pre 
senting  a  petition  against  the  return  of  the 
Unionist  candidate  was  considered,  the  alle- 


2l8  ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

gations  referred  to  the  distribution  of  free 
drinks  and  other  illegal  practices. 

In  the  Litchfield  division  of  Staffordshire 
it  was  decided  to  present  a  petition  against 
the  return  of  Mr.  Fulford,  and  counsel  were 
of  the  opinion  that  there  was  ample  evidence 
of  corrupt  and  illegal  practices. 

In  the  Falkirk  Burghs  a  petition  was  de 
cided  upon  against  the  return  of  Mr.  John 
Wilson,  on  the  ground  of  alleged  bribery  by 
the  Unionist  agent. 

At  Wigan,  Henry  Litherland  was  summoned 
before  the  magistrate  for  bribing  voters. 

These  cases,  as  I  have  said,  are  taken  from 
a  single  issue  of  the  Times.  But  under  the 
head  of  "  Ireland,"  on  another  day,  I  find  the 
following  statement : 

"  Mayo  (NortJi]. — Our  Dublin  correspondent, 
telegraphing  last  night,  says :  The  defeat  of 
Mr.  Egan,  the  Parnellite  candidate,  is  attrib 
uted  to  clerical  intimidation.  In  a  speech  to 
his  supporters,  after  the  declaration  of  the 
poll,  he  declared  that  the  intimidation  that 
had  been  practised  plainly  showed  that  there 
was  no  liberty  of  the  franchise  in  North  Mayo. 
Acting  under  the  advice  of  counsel,  he  has 
lodged  with  the  subsheriff  an  objection  against 
the  return  of  the  votes.  The  validity  of  more 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS  219 

than  400  ballot  papers  is  impugned,  and  ob 
jection  is  made  to  blocks  of  illiterate  voters 
recorded  in  Belmullet.  It  is  further  explained 
that  in  certain  specific  cases  the  voting  was 
illegally  conducted.  The  people  of  Ballina 
do  not  regard  the  declared  result  as  at  all  con 
clusive,  and  it  is  stated  that  on  the  disputed 
votes  Mr.  Egan  would  have  a  small  major 
ity.  Mr.  Egan  is  determined  to  fight  in  the 
higher  courts  the  gross  clerical  intimidation 
practised  in  Belmullet,  Ballycastle,  and  Cross- 
molina,  the  strongholds  of  Mr.  Crilly  and  Hea- 
lyism." 

These  examples  merely  show  that  fraudulent 
practices  in  elections  are  known  as  well  in 
England  as  in  the  United  States. 

I  come  now  to  the  question  of  the  expendi 
ture  of  money.  This  possesses  a  double  inter 
est,  because  it  not  only  shows  us  the  English 
practice,  but  it  also  throws  a  great  deal  of 
light  on  the  charge  so  freely  made  of  late 
years  in  this  country  that  protection  was  not 
only  bad  economically,  but  that  it  led  to  great 
corruption,  owing  to  the  lavish  expenditure 
in  the  campaigns  of  the  protected  interests. 
The  example  of  England  will  enable  us  to  see 
not  only  the  practice  there  as  to  election  ex 
penses,  but  also  what  the  effect  of  a  free-trade 


220  ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

system  is  in  keeping  down  the  amount  of 
money  expended  for  campaign  purposes. 
\/The  enormous  sums  spent  for  election  pur 
poses  in  England  at  the  close  of  the  last  cen 
tury  are  historic.  Fortunes  were  flung  away 
and  great  estates  crippled,  if  not  ruined,  in 
some  of  the  struggles  for  a  coveted  seat,  where 
personal  and  party  passion  ran  high.  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  nowhere  at  any  time  has 
money  ever  been  spent  with  such  unbridled 
profusion  for  the  purpose  of  influencing  votes 
as  in  the  England  of  that  not  very  remote 
period  to  which  I  have  referred.  Even  as  late 
as  1867,  John  Bright  said,  at  Birmingham  : 
"  I  am  not  able  to  say  what  it  has  cost  to  seat 
those  658  members  in  that  House,  but  if  I 
said  that  it  has  cost  them  and  their  friends 
a  million  of  money  (pounds  sterling),  I  should 
say  a  long  way  below  the  mark.  I  believe  it 
has  cost  more  to  seat  those  658  men  there 
than  to  seat  all  the  other  representative  and 
legislative  assemblies  in  the  world.  There  are 
many  members  who  pay  always  from  £1000 
to  £15,000  for  their  election."  It  is  safe  to 
say  that  there  has  never  been  a  Presidential 
election  in  the  United  States,  not  excepting 
the  last,  when  the  total  expenses  of  the  two 
great  parties  exceeded  Mr.  Bright's  under- 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS  221 

estimate  of  a  general  English  election  in  1867, 
and  our  election  of  iS</>  is  the  only  one  that 
at  all  equals  it. 

It  is  not,  however,  the  election  expenses 
of  1867  that  it  is  proper  for  us  to  consider 
and  compare  our  own  with  now.  We  must 
deal  with  the  England  of  to-day,  where  laws 
have  been  passed  to  cure  the  evils  of  the 
use  of  money  at  election,  so  flagrant  even 
thirty  years  ago. 

The  corrupt -practices  act,  which  was  the 
result  of  the  movement  to  purify  and  reform 
elections  in  England,  fixes  the  maximum 
amount  which  each  candidate  can  spend  in 
each  division  of  the  United  Kingdom.  The 
candidates  are  required  by  law  to  make  a  re 
turn  of  all  their  expenses,  and  these  returns 
are  published  officially.  In  1892  the  official 
returns  show  that  there  were  670  seats  and 
1307  candidates.  Fifty-six  seats  were  uncon- 
tested,  and  the  expenses,  therefore,  in  those 
cases  were  little  or  nothing.  The  official  re 
turns  include  all  the  seats,  although,  of  course, 
if  these  56  seats  were  deducted  it  would  in 
crease  the  average  expenditure  for  the  others. 
The  1307  candidates  in  1892  spent  £958,532 
(in  round  numbers,  $4,792,660),  including  the 
returning  officers'  charges,  and  £761,058,  or 


222  ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

$3,805,290,  exclusive  of  the  returning  officers' 
charges — that  is,  for  purely  political  purposes. 
The  total  number  of  votes  polled  was  4,605,442, 
and  the  amount  of  money  spent  per  vote  was 
four  shillings  one  penny,  or  just  about  one 
dollar  a  head.  The  official  returns  for  1895 
show  that  there  were  670  seats  and  1181  can 
didates.  There  were,  therefore,  at  least  159 
uncontested  seats,  which,  if  deducted,  would 
raise  very  greatly  the  average  expense  of  those 
contested.  Taking  them,  however,  all  together 
as  before,  the  official  report  shows  that  under 
the  act  1 181  candidates  spent  £773,333,  includ 
ing  expenses  of  returning  officers,  and  exclud 
ing  expenses  of  returning  officers,  £617,996. 
This  was  at  the  rate  of  $s.  8f^.,  or  about 
90  cents,  a  head,  the  total  number  of  voters 
being  3,867,060.  The  decline  in  the  number 
of  voters  and  in  the  total  expense  from  1892 
to  1895  was  due  to  the  increase  in  the  number 
of  uncontested  seats,  for  the  general  interest 
was  certainly  as  great  in  the  latter  as  in  the 
former  year. 

It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  these 
are  only  the  official  returns  of  the  expenses 
allowed  to  each  candidate  by  the  law.  The 
central  committees  of  the  two  great  parties 
and  other  political  committees  interested  in 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS  223 

special  objects  of  legislation,  such  as  bimetal 
lism  or  the  liquor  traffic,  spend  a  great  deal  of 
money  for  political  purposes  of  which  no  re 
turn  is  made.  I  was  told  by  good  judges,  in 
cluding  leaders  of  both  the  great  parties,  that 
the  election  expenses  of  one  general  election 
in  England,  exclusive  of  returning  officers' 
charges  and  of  the  expenditures  by  organiza 
tions  interested  in  special  subjects,  would 
reach  at  least  a  million  pounds.  The  central 
committees,  whose  funds  are  very  large,  fur 
nish,  of  course,  a  great  deal  of  the  money  to 
the  candidates  .which  appears  in  the  official  re 
turns,  but  they  also  necessarily  spend  a  good 
deal  of  money  which  does  not  appear  in  the 
returns.  Nor  does  the  expenditure  of  money 
cease  here.  I  was  told,  for  instance,  that  in 
the  Newmarket  division,  where  two  very  rich 
men  were  running,  a  great  deal  of  money  was 
being  spent  on  both  sides.  I  asked  how  this 
could  be  done  under  the  corrupt-practices  act, 
and  was  informed  that  in  this  case  one  of  the 
candidates  gave  employment  to  all  the  unem 
ployed  in  the  division,  thus  encouraging  many 
voters  in  the  support  of  correct  political  prin 
ciples,  and  at  the  same  time  relieving  the  rate 
payers.  This  may  be  called  a  special  in 
stance,  but  it  indicates  that  evasion  of  the 


224  ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

corrupt-practices  act  is  at  least  possible.  One 
other  fact  which  I  derived  from  official  returns 
seems  to  be  of  more  general  application.  For 
the  week  ending  July  I5th  the  increase  of  the 
revenue  from  beer  (there  having  been  no 
change  in  the  law)  over  the  same  week  of  the 
previous  year  was  £337,000,  indicating  an  in- 
creased  consumption  of  about  one  million 
barrels.  The  first  pollings  of  the  general  elec 
tion  took  place  on  July  I3th,  and  continued 
for  about  three  weeks.  The  Liberals  charged 
that  their  opponents  were  giving  free  beer  to 
the  voters,  and  this  extraordinary  rise  in  the 
revenue  just  at  election  time  seems  at  least  to 
indicate  that  the  consumption  of  beer  in 
creases  marvellously  in  England  when  voting 
is  to  be  done. 

There  is  nothing  certainly  in  these  facts  and 
figures  to  indicate  that  free  trade  has  a  de 
pressing  or  lowering  effect  on  election  expen 
ditures.  But  in  making  a  comparison  with 
our  own  expenditures  I  will  limit  myself  to 
the  totals  of  the  official  returns  for  Great  Brit 
ain,  which  are  very  far  from  representing  the 
amount  of  money  actually  spent.  According 
to  those  returns  an  election  in  England  costs 
as  nearly  as  possible  from  ninety  cents  to  one 
dollar  for  every  voter.  On  that  basis  we  were 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS  225 

entitled,  if  we  followed  the  English  example 
of  moderation  in  election  expenditures,  to 
have  spent  in  the  campaign  of  1892  $12,154,- 
542,  and  in  that  of  1896  at  least  $15,000,000. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  before  1896  there  has 
never  been  a  campaign  in  which  the  national 
committees  of  the  two  great  American  parties 
have  spent  between  them  three  million  dol 
lars.  Allowing,  however,  three  million  to  the 
two  national  committees,  and  two  million 
more  to  cover  all  that  is  spent  in  addition  out 
side  the  two  great  committees,  we  have  five 
million  dollars  for  the  expenditures  of  an 
American  Presidential  election  before  1896, 
which  is  at  the  rate  of  forty  cents  per  voter, 
as  against  one  dollar  in  England.  This  is  an 
excessive  estimate,  for  most  of  the  money  of 
the  national  committees  is  sent  to  the  poorer 
States  and  Congressional  districts,  in  very  few 
of  which,  indeed,  candidates  are  to  be  found 
who  can  afford  anything  like  the  average  ex 
penditure  of  an  English  division.  Taking, 
then,  five  million  dollars  as  the  expenditure  of 
the  Presidential  election,  we  find  that  it  is 
just  about  the  amount  actually  spent  at  a 
general  election  in  England,  and  only  half 
what  we  should  be  entitled  to  spend  if  we 
took  the  scale  of  the  English  official  returns 
15 


226  ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

per  vote  as  our  standard  of  expenditures. 
When,  in  addition,  it  is  remembered  that  in 
this  country  we  have  great  distances  to  cover, 
which  are  unknown  in  England,  and  which 
add  enormously  to  the  expense  of  campaign 
ing,  it  will  be  seen  that  in  the  United. States, 
despite  the  corrupting  influences  of  protected 
industries,  we  do  not  spend  half  the  money 
which  we  should  spend  if  we  lived  up  to  the 
English  standard. 

If  we  take  the  campaign  of  1896,  the  most 
expensive  we  have  ever  had,  although  one 
party  had  much  more  money  than  the  other, 
it  is  safe  to  say  that  $6,000,000  would  be  a 
liberal  estimate  for  the  expenditures  of  both 
parties,  while  on  the  English  basis  we  were  en 
titled  to  spend  $15,000,000.  When  it  is  re 
membered,  also,  that  at  the  close  of  the  cam 
paign  the  Republican  party  was  spending  at 
the  rate  of  $25,000  a  day  for  the  expenses  of 
speakers  and  meetings,  had  issued  and  dis 
tributed  100,000,000  pamphlets  and  circulars, 
and  was  publishing  matter  relating  to  the  cam 
paign  in  some  15,000  newspapers,  it  is  easy 
to  see  that  there  could  not  have  been  much 
money  left  for  the  purchase  of  votes.  One 
rather  wonders  indeed  what  becomes  of  a 
nearly  equal  amount  spent  in  England,  where 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS  227 

distances  arc  short,  where  the  campaign  lasts 
three  weeks  instead  of  four  months,  and  where 
the  number  of  votes  polled  is  only  about  one 
quarter  as  many  as  were  thrown  in  the  United 
States  in  1896.  These  facts  and  comparisons, 
which  I  offer  without  comment,  are,  I  think, 
worthy  of  consideration  by  those  who  think 
we  can  escape  from  the  use  of  money  at  elec 
tions  by  purifying  our  system  after  the  English 
fashion  and  adapting  ourselves  to  the  English 
model.  Perhaps  we  should  improve  morally  if 
we  did  so,  but  we  should  certainly  spend  from 
twice  to  three  times  as  much  money  as  we  do 
now  at  a  Presidential  election,  which  seems, 
whatever  else  may  be  said  of  it,  a  queer  kind 
of  cure  for  any  political  evil. 

As  to  party  discipline  and  party  feeling,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  they  were  much  the  same 
in  England  as  in  the  United  States.  The 
great  body  of  voters  there,  as  here,  remain 
firm  in  their  party  allegiance.  Between  them 
is  the  shifting  vote  which  cannot  be  depended 
on,  and  which  usually  determines  the  fate  of 
elections,  except  in  a  case  of  a  great  party  re 
volt.  In  all  the  political  talk  which  I  heard, 
and  at  the  time  I  was  in  England  everybody 
was  talking  politics,  I  should  say  that  there 
was  an  even  keener  partisanship  shown  than 


228  ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

in  this  country.  In  Parliament  party  disci 
pline  is  much  stronger  than  with  us,  although, 
as  I  have  said,  there  is  no  perceptible  differ 
ence  in  the  discipline  of  the  great  body  of 
voters.  The  cause  of  this  severer  discipline  in 
Parliament  lies,  of  course,  in  the  English  sys 
tem  of  government.  The  ministry  is  a  com 
mittee  of  both  Houses.  They  have  a  power 
to  dissolve  at  any  moment,  and  they  therefore 
hold  over  all  their  followers  the  great  control 
which  comes  from  the  ability  to  turn  them  out 
of  office  and  force  them  to  the  expense  of  an 
election,  and  possibly  to  the  loss  of  their  seats. 
Under  these  circumstances  it  is  no  wonder 
that  party  discipline  in  Parliament  is  so  very 
strong. 

In  writing  thus  of  some  of  the  facts  in  re 
gard  to  the  English  elections,  I  have  not  had 
the  slightest  intention  of  criticising  their  meth 
ods  or  finding  fault  with  them.  They  are  not 
perfect ;  they  have  their  defects,  like  our  own ; 
but  also,  like  our  own,  I  have  no  doubt  what 
ever  that  English  elections  in  the  main  are 
fair  and  free,  and  that  they  express,  as  ours 
do,  the  honest  will  of  the  voters.  I  took  oc 
casion  to  go  over  to  the  Battersea  division,  in 
London,  where  John  Burns  was  running,  in 
order  to  see  the  polling.  The  officers  in  charge 


ENGLISH    ELECTIONS  229 

of  the  polling-booth  which  I  visited  very  kind 
ly  admitted  me  behind  the  rail,  so  that  I  could 
see  the  voting  in  progress.  The  system  is  ex 
actly  the  same  as  that  of  my  own  State.  It 
is  the  secret,  or  Australian,  ballot,  and  proceeds 
much  more  rapidly  than  with  us,  because  they 
vote  only  for  one,  or  at  the  most  two  or  three 
candidates.  All  the  proceedings  were  quiet  and 
orderly.  There  was  a  small  crowd  outside  the 
polling -place  who  chaffed  the  voters  good- 
naturedly  as  they  went  in,  but  there  was  not 
the  slightest  sign  of  disorder  of  any  kind.  I 
also  visited  some  polling-places  in  the  adjoin 
ing  Clapham  division.  Here  the  voting  was 
proceeding  even  more  quickly  and  quietly,  if 
possible,  than  in  Battersea. 

My  purpose  in  what  I  have  said  here  of 
English  elections,  and  in  the  analysis  which  I 
have  given  of  their  election  expenditures,  has 
been  merely  to  show  that  they  do  not  differ 
materially  from  ours,  although  money  is  so 
much  more  freely  used  in  England  than  with 
us.  The  moral  to  be  drawn  from  it  all  is  that 
we  should  seek  by  every  means  in  our  power 
to  remedy  any  evils  in  our  own  system  and  to 
guard  against  all  dangers  to  the  ballot-box. 
But  this  can  best  be  done  by  attending  to  our 
own  affairs,  guided  by  general  standards  of 


230  ENGLISH    ELECTIONS 

what  is  wise  and  right,  and  not  by  nervously 
and  weakly  seeking  to  imitate  other  people. 
There  is  no  perfection  to  be  found  in  English 
election  methods.  They  have  their  problems 
as  we  have  ours.  We  can  manage  our  own 
troubles  best  in  our  own  way,  and  despite  the 
outcries  of  the  Anglo-Americans  in  some  of 
our  larger  cities,  it  may  be  safely  said  that 
English  election  methods  are  very  much  like 
those  of  English-speaking  people  elsewhere, 
and  that  human  nature  is  not  materially  differ 
ent  in  England  from  that  in  the  United  States, 
so  far,  at  least,  as  election  contests  are  con 
cerned. 


OUR  FOREIGN   POLICY 


OUR   FOREIGN   POLICY 

DURING  the  last  four  years  questions  of  our 
relations  with  other  countries,  and  involving 
our  interests  outside  our  own  borders,  have 
filled  a  large  place  in  our  politics,  awakened 
public  attention,  and  aroused  discussion  both 
in  Congress  and  the  press.  One  of  these  < 
tions  has  been  settled  ;  the  others  are  still  with 
us.  Their  presence,  meaning,  and  importance 
alike  merit  serious  study,  and  cannot  be  in 
telligently  disposed  of  by  epithets  or  sneers. 
Why  is  it  that  our  foreign  policy  and  our  for 
eign  relations  have  thus  come  within  a  com 
paratively  short  period  so  strongly  and  irre- 
pressibly  to  the  front?  The  fact  is  of  itself 
momentous  enough,  the  issues  involved  suffi 
ciently  grave,  to  deserve  a  calmer  considera 
tion  and  a  more  candid  discussion  than  are 
always  accorded  to  them. 

Those  who  are  opposed  to  our  having  any 
foreign  policy  at  all,  and  who  desire  to  repress 
these  questions  of  foreign  relations  altogether, 


234  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

have  various  explanations  to  account  for  their 
appearance,  which  are  easily  stated,  because 
they  required  but  slight  labor  in  invention  or 
construction.  One  or  two  able  editors,  for  ex 
ample,  who  have  abandoned  the  country  of 
their  birth  without  acquiring  any  other,  and 
are  therefore  as  well  able  to  judge  of  patriot 
ism  as  a  blind  man  of  a  picture,  set  down  the 
whole  thing  as  an  outburst  of  pseudo  -  pa 
triotism.  Another  equally  thoughtful  solution 
is  that  those  Americans  who  advocate  a  dis 
tinct  foreign  policy  for  the  United  States  are 
simply  demagogues,  playing  to  the  galleries 
and  seeking  applause  from  that  source ;  and 
it  is  asserted  that  the  questions  of  our  foreign 
relations  have  been  created  in  this  way.  If 
this  view  is  correct,  there  is  certainly  no  reason 
for  anxiety  on  the  part  of  those  who  suggest 
it ;  for  playing  to  the  galleries,  while  it  may 
give  a  momentary  triumph  to  the  performer, 
rarely  leads  to  any  serious  results  either  on 
the  stage  or  in  real  life.  Again,  those  who 
cater  for  the  English  market  explain  the  phe 
nomena  by  saying  that  the  whole  business  is 
an  appeal  to  the  Irish  vote.  This  is,  no  doubt, 
satisfying  to  the  London  editorial  mind,  but, 
as  a  theory,  it  seems  to  lack  breadth,  for  many 
of  the  questions  which  have  involved  our  for- 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  235 

eign  relations  do  not  concern  England  at  all. 
Still  another  explanation  is  that  it  is  all  a 
matter  of  party  politics.  This  sounds  pleasant 
and  satisfactory,  but  it  is  a  little  obscure,  as 
on  all  the  foreign  questions  which  have  arisen 
party  lines  have  been  entirely  broken. 

All  these  explanations,  and  there  are  others 
of  a  similar  character  which  I  have  not  enu 
merated,  however  they  differ,  agree  on  one 
point — that  these  foreign  questions  have  been 
artificially  forced  forward,  that  they  are  the 
work  of  a  few  newspapers  and  of  a  few  violent 
and  unscrupulous  public  men,  chiefly  in  the 
Senate,  and  that  those  who  support  a  strong 
foreign  policy  are  in  every  instance  advocating 
something  new  and  unheard  of  in  American 
politics.  If  this  be  true,  then  the  public  men 
and  editors,  whom  their  opponents,  with  singu 
lar  poverty  of  invention  but  with  admirable 
fidelity  to  British  precedents,  call  "jingoes," 
are  not  merely  dangerous  and  unscrupulous, 
but  they  are  persons  of  extraordinary  power, 
for  they  have  performed  the  unexampled  feat 
of  creating  from  nothing  not  one  but  a  series 
of  great  and  far-reaching  political  questions. 
Unfortunately  for  this  theory,  such  an  exploit 
is  quite  impossible.  Great  political  questions, 
whether  foreign  or  domestic,  cannot  be  created 


236  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

from  nothing  by  any  man  or  by  any  set  of  men. 
They  spring  from  existing  conditions ;  they 
come  from  the  social,  economic,  or  political 
development  of  mankind ;  they  usually  have 
their  roots  deep  down  in  a  distant  past,  and 
all  men  can  do  is  to  point  them  out,  call  at 
tention  to  them,  take  sides  about  them,  fight 
over  them,  and  in  some  fashion  or  other  settle 
them. 

The  questions  of  foreign  policy  which  have 
been  so  prominent  in  the  United  States  dur 
ing  the  last  four  years  are  simply  products  of 
this  same  general  law.  If  we  look  at  them 
carefully  we  can  readily  discover  why  they  are 
here  and  what  are  the  reasons  of  their  exist 
ence.  The  first  cause  is  of  world-wide  scope. 
(Economic  conditions  into  which  it  is  needless 
to  enter,  but  which  of  late  have  exerted  a  con 
stantly  increasing  pressure  both  upon  govern 
ments  and  people,  have  been  forcing  nations 
and  individuals  alike  in  the  Old  World  to  seek 
everywhere  for  fresh  outlets  for  population 
and  new  opportunities  for  commerce,  trade, 
and  money-making.  In  the  fierce  rivalry  thus 
engendered,  the  great  powers  of  Europe  have 
reached  out  in  all  directions  and  seized  the 
waste  places  of  the  earth.  With  especial  ra 
pacity  they  have  grasped  for  every  bit  of  land 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  237 

where  there  was  a  chance  of  finding  gold.  In 
this  way,  and  with  these  incentives,  Africa  has 
been  parcelled  out  among  the  great  powers  of 
Europe.  England  has  won  a  number  of  glori 
ous  victories  over  negro  tribes;  France  has 
seized  on  Madagascar;  Italy  has  been  badly 
beaten  in  Abyssinia ;  even  Germany  has  taken 
a  share  in  the  Dark  Continent.  In  the  far  East 
it  is  the  same  story.  England  and  France 
have  been  dividing  Siam,  while  Russia  is  com 
ing  down  with  her  railroad  to  the  Pacific,  tak 
ing  a  large  slice  of  China  on  the  way. 

So  long  as  this  process  of  seizing  land  was 
confined  to  Asia  and  Africa  it  did  not  concern 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  except  as  an 
interesting  exhibition  of  the  march  of  civili 
zation.  But  a  movement  of  this  kind  driven 
by  great  forces  does  not  stop  of  its  own  ac 
cord  at  any  given  point.  The  same  policy 
which  had  been  adopted  in  Africa  was  applied 
to  the  islands  of  the  Pacific.  In  a  few  years 
these  were  all  absorbed  by  European  powers, 
but  chiefly  by  England.  Nothing  practically 
escaped  except  the  Samoan  group  and  the 
Sandwich  Islands.  The  former  were  saved  by 
the  intervention  of  the  United  States,  which 
resulted  in  the  Berlin  agreement.  The  im 
portance  to  the  United  States,  both  on  mili- 


238  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

tary  and  commercial  grounds,  of  a  foothold  in 
the  South  Pacific  is,  one  would  suppose,  suf 
ficiently  obvious,  yet  the  last  administration 
did  its  best  to  withdraw  from  the  Berlin  agree 
ment,  abandon  our  influence  and  control  in 
the  Samoan  group,  and  give  up  our  valuable 
right  to  the  harbor  of  Pago  -  Pago.  Luckily 
this  attempt  to  withdraw  failed,  and  we  still 
retain  our  interest  in  Samoa. 

Far  more  important  than  Samoa  are  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  and  there  the  pressure  of 
the  movement  from  Europe  began  to  be  felt 
after  the  seizure  of  the  rest  of  the  Pacific 
islands  was  completed.  In  this  connection  it 
will  be  well  to  show  that  the  European  move 
ment  for  the  seizure  of  land  everywhere  is  not 
a  figure  of  speech,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
demonstrate  how  real  and  great  was  the  im 
pulse  which  forced  Samoa  and  Hawaii  forward 
as  living  questions  in  American  politics.  In 
1888  Great  Britain  took  the  Gilbert  group  of 
twelve  islands,  1500  miles  from  Hawaii;  the 
Ellice  group  of  five  islands,  1800  miles  from 
Hawaii ;  the  Enderbury  group  of  five  islands, 
1600  miles  from  Hawaii ;  the  Union  group 
of  three  islands,  1800  miles  from  Hawaii; 
and  Kingman,  Fanning,  Washington,  Palmyra, 
Christmas,  and  Jarvis  islands.  She  also  took, 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  239 

still  in  the  same  year,  Maiden,  Starbuck,  Du- 
dosa,  Penrhyn,  Vostok,  Flint,  and  Caroline 
islands.  In  1889  she  took  Ruie  Island,  2400 
miles  from  Hawaii ;  Suwaroff  Island,  1900 
miles  from  Hawaii,  and  the  Coral  Islands,  900 
miles  from  Hawaii.  In  1891  she  took  Johns 
ton  Island,  600  miles  from  Hawaii;  in  1892, 
Gardner  Island,  1600  miles  from  Hawaii  ;  and 
in  the  same  year  Danger  Island,  1800  miles 
from  Hawaii.  The  islands  of  Palmyra  and 
Johnston  had  been  in  possession  of  the  Ha 
waiian  government  since  1854,  and  are  still 
claimed  as  a  part  of  Hawaiian  territory. 

This  record,  including  the  seizure  of  two 
islands  claimed  by  Hawaii,  a  very  weak  power, 
seemed  to  indicate  that  England  meant  to  ab 
sorb  every  Pacific  island  she  could  reach,  and 
that  she  might  be  persuaded  to  take  the  Sand 
wich  Islands  if  they  came  in  her  way.  It  was 
all  done  silently  and  efficiently  by  the  law  of 
the  strongest,  and  it  was  this  advance  which 
brought  the  European  movement  into  contact 
with  American  interests.  We  had  nothing  to 
do  with  it.  The  aggression  was  not  ours. 

With  Hawaii,  therefore,  came  the  first  of 
those  questions  of  foreign  policy  which  have 
disturbed  so  much  those  persons  in  the  United 
States  who  are  cither  colonial  or  cosmopolitan 


240  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

in  their  predilections.  In  that  connection  for 
the  first  time  was  heard  the  outcry  about 
"jingoism,"  and  the  declaration  that  an  at 
tempt  was  being  made  to  drag  the  United 
States  into  new  and  untried  paths,  and  to  un 
settle  the  established  order  of  things  in  order 
to  do  so. 

Let  us  see  just  how  new  the  subject  was. 
So  far  as  those  islands  of  the  Hawaiian  group 
were  concerned,  the  work  of  introducing  West 
ern  civilization  had  been  done  by  Americans. 
American  influence  had  always  been  para 
mount  there,  and  an  American  settlement  or 
colony  had  been  long  established.  Politically 
our  relations  with  Hawaii  have  always  been 
close  and  of  an  exceptional  character.  Those 
relations  cannot  be  more  tersely  and  accu 
rately  described  than  in  the  words  of  Senator 
Davis,  in  the  very  able  speech  which  he  made 
on  this  subject  in  1894: 

"  For  more  than  fifty  years,  as  a  matter  of 
announced  national  policy  on  the  part  of  this 
government,  acquiesced  in  by  Hawaii  and  by 
the  nations  of  the  civilized  world,  those  islands 
have  been  entailed  to  the  United  States,  and 
as  to  the  United  States  have  been  in  reversion 
when  the  time  should  come  when  the  fleeting 
monarchy  which  has  existed  there  should 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  241 

expire*,  There  has  not  been  a  Secretary  of 
State  since  1840  who  has  not  announced  this 
determination  and  this  policy.  Mr.  Webster, 
Mr.  Legare,  Mr.  Marcy,  Mr.  Buchanan,  Mr. 
Scward,  Mr.  Elaine,  and  all  who  have  held 
that  office  have  spoken  in  the  voice  of  their 
government  in  this  respect  with  no  uncertain 
tone,  and  it  has  been  acquiesced  in  by  foreign 
nations.  So  that  it  is  neither  extraordinary 
nor  remarkable  that  at  some  time,  under  fa 
vorable  circumstances  and  conditions,  that  to 
which  manifest  destiny  had  dedicated  those 
islands  should  be  brought  to  pass.  Indeed, 
in  1854,  Mr.  Marcy,  then  being  Secretary  of 
State,  a  treaty  of  annexation  was  negotiated, 
and  only  failed  of  confirmation  because  of  its 
condition  respecting  pecuniary  compensation 
to  be  made,  and  because  of  the  fact  that  the 
treaty  provided  that  the  islands  of  Hawaii 
should  become  a  State  in  the  Union." 

So  it  appears,  when  we  leave  the  region  of 
outcries  and  come  to  that  of  historical  facts, 
that  Hawaii  has  been  the  peculiar  care  of  this 
nation  for  half  a  century,  and  that  the  military 
and  commercial  importance  of  the  islands  and 
the  welfare  of  the  American  colony  there  have 
been  fully  understood  by  successive  adminis 
trations  of  all  parties.  Those  who  took  up 
16 


242  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

and  supported  Hawaiian  interests  in  Congress, 
therefore,  were  the  conservative  followers  of 
the  traditional  policy  of  the  United  States, 
and  those  who  opposed  them  were  the  inno 
vators.  Even  after  the  Hawaiian  treaty  of 
annexation  was  withdrawn  by  Mr.  Cleveland, 
the  Senate  without  a  dissenting  voice  passed 
a  resolution  declaring  that  the  attempt  of  any 
other  nation  to  take  possession  of  the  Sand 
wich  Islands  would  be  regarded  as  an  act  of 
hostility  by  the  United  States.  Since  then  a 
new  danger  has  arisen  from  the  Japanese,  who 
are  seeking  to  get  control  of  the  islands  by 
pouring  in  colonists,  and  the  United  States 
must  now  determine  whether  they  will  control 
and  protect  the  islands  or  shrink  from  the 
responsibility  and  allow  the  islands  to  seek 
safety  under  the  British  flag ;  for  we  can  no 
longer  refuse  either  to  act  ourselves  or  to 
allow  any  one  else  to  act.  President  McKinley 
has  met  and  practically  settled  the  question 
by  sending  to  the  Senate  a  new  treaty  of  an 
nexation  by  which,  or  by  resolution,  the  islands 
will  be  joined  to  the  United  States.  The  mili 
tary  and  commercial  reasons  for  this  step  are 
conclusive.  Even  more  conclusive  are  the  ob 
ligations  to  the  people  of  the  island  which  tra 
dition  and  good  faith  alike  impose  upon  us. 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  243 

The  small  and  select  band  who  judge  our  for 
eign  policy  by  the  criticism  of  the  wishes  of 
Kn^land  will  be  disturbed.  There  is  also  the 
pitiful  objection  that  taking  the  islands  may 
raise  some  problems  and  cause  us  a  little  ex 
pense  and  trouble,  as  if  the  people  who  have 
conquered  a  continent  and  fought  the  greatest 
war  of  modern  times  could  not  manage  a  little 
group  of  Pacific  islands.  But  this  is  not  the 
place  to  discuss  the  merits  or  to  defend  our 
policy  in  regard  to  Hawaii.  All  I  desire  to 
show  here  is  that  the  question  was  forced  for 
ward  by  the  European  movement  for  the  seiz 
ure  of  all  land  everywhere  not  held  by  a  strong 
hand,  and  that  the  party  which  urged  action 
on  the  part  of  the  United  States  was  pursuing 
the  established  policy  of  fifty  years,  while  their 
opponents  were  the  advocates  of  a  wholly  new 
policy  in  this  direction,  and  one  which  was  not 
entitled  historically  to  be  called  American. 

Such  was  the  foreign  question  which  arose 
in  the  West  gravely  affecting  our  future  in 
the  Pacific,  where  our  commercial  extension 
and  development  must  largely  be.  But  the 
same  forces  which  operated  there  were  at  work 
elsewhere,  and  were  threatening  us  in  a  far 
more  vital  point.  The  land-hunger  which  had 
led  to  the  partition  of  Africa  was  not  likely 


244  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

to  be  satisfied  while  anything  else  remained 
undevoured.  South  America,  with  many  weak 
governments,  and  with  almost  endless  quanti 
ties  of  rich  and  unoccupied  land,  was,  and  is 
still,  very  tempting.  England  already  had  a 
foothold  there,  and  under  the  new  pressure  a 
difficulty  which  had  been  dragging  along  for 
many  years  suddenly  became  acute.  The  un 
settled  boundary  between  British  Guiana  and 
Venezuela,  which  had  been  moving  to  the 
westward  for  some  time,  began  to  jump  for 
ward  with  leaps  and  bounds,  stimulated  by  the 
discovery  of  gold-mines,  and  by  the  natural 
desire  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain  to  control 
the  Orinoco,  one  of  the  great  river  systems  of 
the  continent.  For  twenty  years  we  had  been 
trying  through  the  ordinary  diplomatic  chan 
nels,  and  by  courteous  representations,  to  in 
duce  Great  Britain  to  settle  the  boundary 
question  with  Venezuela  by  arbitration.  All 
our  efforts  had  been  in  vain,  but  by  the  year 
1895  it  had  become  apparent  that  unless  we 
were  prepared  to  see  South  America  share 
sooner  or  later  the  fate  of  Africa  it  was  neces 
sary  for  us  to  intervene.  If  Great  Britain  was 
to  be  permitted  to  take  the  territory  of  Vene 
zuela  under  pretext  of  a  boundary  dispute, 
there  was  nothing  to  prevent  her  taking  the 


OUR    KOKKIGN    POLICY  245 

whole  of  Venezuela  or  any  other  South  Amer 
ican  state.  If  Great  Britain  could  do  this  with 
impunity,  France  and  Germany  would  do  it 
also.  These  powers,  as  has  been  pointed  out, 
had  already  seized  the  islands  of  the  Pacific 
and  parcelled  out  Africa.  If  the  United  States 
were  prepared  to  see  South  America  pass 
gradually  into  the  hands  of  Great  Britain  and 
other  European  powers,  and  to  be  hemmed  in 
by  British  naval  posts  and  European  depend 
encies,  there  was,  of  course,  nothing  more  to 
be  said.  But  this  onward  movement  of  Great 
Britain  came  in  conflict  with  the  Monroe  Doc 
trine,  which  the  United  States  has  ever  sus 
tained  at  all  hazards.  This  doctrine  was  there 
fore  at  once  invoked  by  Mr.  Olney,  who  saw 
clearly  the  meaning  of  the  Venezuelan  ques 
tion,  and  who  possessed  the  power  and  the 
ability  to  deal  with  it. 

A  great  deal  of  discussion,  both  then  and 
since,  has  been  devoted  to  the  Monroe  Doc 
trine,  but  in  reality  it  is  not  in  the  least  com 
plicated.  It  is  merely  the  corollary  of  Wash 
ington's  neutrality  policy,  which  declared  that 
the  United  States  would  not  meddle  with,  or 
take  part  in,  the  affairs  of  Europe.  The  Mon 
roe  Doctrine  announced  it  to  be  the  settled 
policy  of  the  United  States  to  regard  any  at- 


246  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

tempt  on  the  part  of  any  European  power  to 
conquer  an  American  state,  to  seize  territory 
other  than  that  which  they  then  held,  or  to 
make  any  new  establishment  in  either  North 
or  South  America,  as  an  act  of  hostility  tow 
ards  the  United  States,  and  one  not  to  be 
permitted.  In  other  words,  the  Monroe  Doc 
trine  forbids  any  territorial  aggression  or  ex 
tension,  whether  permanent  or  nominally  tem 
porary,  on  the  American  continents  by  any 
European  power.  It  was  at  once  said,  when 
this  question  arose,  that  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
was  not  a  principle  of  international  law,  and 
had  never  been  enforced.  It  is  certainly  not 
a  principle  of  international  law  any  more  than 
the  independence  of  the  American  colonies, 
when  it  was  first  asserted,  was  a  principle  of 
international  law.  We  declared  and  estab 
lished  that  independence  and  secured  for  it 
the  recognition  of  the  civilized  world.  Other 
nations  continue  to  recognize  it,  not  because  it 
is  a  principle  of  international  law,  but  because 
it  is  a  fact  with  which  it  is  not  wholesome 
to  quarrel.  Moreover,  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
rests  on  the  great  principle  of  self-preserva 
tion,  which  is  much  older  than  international 
law,  and  is  recognized  by  it.  Any  nation  has 
the  right  to  interfere  in  regard  to  another 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  247 

country  if  its  own  safety  is  involved,  and  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  is  merely  the  application  of 
this  principle  limited  in  its  scope  to  the  Amer 
ican  hemisphere. 

As  to  the  second  point  made  at  that  time- 
that  the  doctrine  had  not  been  enforced — the 
case  is  equally  clear.  The  Monroe  Doctrine 
has  been  observed  since  its  declaration  by 
other  nations  out  of  deference  to  the  United 
States.  But  one  instance  has  arisen,  prior  to 
the  Venezuelan  case,  in  which  an  infraction 
was  forcibly  and  seriously  attempted,  and  then 
the  doctrine  was  vigorously  vindicated.  The 
Emperor  of  the  French  undertook  to  estab 
lish  an  empire  with  a  European  emperor  in 
Mexico.  We  were  hampered  at  the  moment 
by  a  great  civil  war,  but  the  despatch  from 
Mr.  Seward,  which  carried  to  our  representa 
tives  abroad  the  news  of  Lee's  surrender,  bore 
also  instructions  to  our  Minister  in  France  to 
notify  the  French  government,  in  diplomatic 
language,  that  if  the  French  armies  were  not 
withdrawn  from  Mexico  we  would  march  five 
hundred  thousand  men  down  there  if  necessary 
and  put  them  out.  General  Sheridan,  with  a 
strong  army,  was  immediately  ordered  to  the 
Mexican  boundary,  and  the  only  mistake  made 
was  in  not  allowing  him  to  immediately  cross 


248  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

the  frontier  and  expell  the  French.  Mr.  Sew- 
ard,  however,  preferred  the  slower  methods 
of  diplomacy,  and  in  the  course  of  two  years 
attained  his  object  completely.  The  French 
abandoned  Mexico,  and  Maximilian  was  left 
to  his  fate.  There  can  be  little  question  that 
at  the  time  both  the  French  government  and 
the  luckless  Maximilian  were  quite  aware  that 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  a  vital  principle,  and 
that  it  was  dangerous  to  infringe  upon  it. 
^  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  effort  of 
England  to  extend  her  South  American  pos 
sessions  under  pretext  of  a  boundary  dispute 
was  an  infraction  of  the  doctrine  as  originally 
declared.  But  whether  it  was  or  not,  we  had 
the  right  to  intervene,  because  we  believed 
our  own  safety  was  threatened  by  the  incep 
tion  of  a  policy  which  would  have  led,  in  its 
expansion,  to  the  partition  of  South  America, 
and  to  the  establishment  in  this  hemisphere 
of  powerful  neighbors,  whose  presence  would 
have  compelled  us  to  become  a  great  military 
power,  and  at  the  same  time  would  have  en 
dangered  the  existence  of  our  trade  and  com 
merce  with  the  South  American  states. 

We  were  wise  enough  to  take  to  heart  the 
words  of  Junius  :  "  One  precedent  creates  an 
other.  They  soon  accumulate  and  constitute 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  249 

law.  What  yesterday  was  fact  to-day  is  doc 
trine."  \Ye  acted  on  the  sound  principle  of 
obsta  principiis.  Mr.  Olney  sent  a  strong  note 
in  July,  1895.  Lord  Salisbury  replied,  not 
only  controverting  our  position  as  to  Vene 
zuela,  but  attacking  the  validity  of  the  Mon 
roe  Doctrine  itself.  Then,  in  December,  Mr. 
Cleveland  sent  his  famous  message.  England 
was  surprised,  in  part  with  reason  and  in  part 
without.  She  was  surprised,  with  reason,  be 
cause  the  American  Ambassador  and  the 
American  correspondents  of  the  London  news 
papers  at  that  time  had  misled  her  as  to 
American  feeling  and  intentions.  She  was 
surprised,  without  reason,  because  she  had 
wilfully  misconstrued  our  courteous  remon 
strances  for  twenty  years  back  on  this  subject. 
Englishmen  are  prone  to  mistake  civility 
for  servility.  The  words  sound  somewhat 
alike,  but  there  is  really  a  great  difference  be 
tween  them,  and  it  was  just  here  that  England 
made  her  error.  Complaint  was  made  at  the 
time,  both  in  England  and  among  her  sup 
porters  here,  that  Mr.  Cleveland's  message, 
especially  the  last  clause,  was  rough  and  un 
diplomatic.  It  was  rough ;  but  mildness  had 
failed  and  roughness  succeeded.  Where  po 
lite  and  earnest  remonstrance  had  proved 


250  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

wholly  ineffective,  a  little  plain  speech  was  en 
tirely  successful.  Thackeray  says  somewhere  : 
"  If  a  man's  foot  is  in  your  way  and  he  will 
not  remove  it,  stamp  on  it.  He  will  not  like 
you,  but  he  will  take  his  foot  out  of  the  way." 
It  is  very  unpleasant  to  do  such  things,  but 
sometimes  it  becomes  absolutely  necessary. 
Mr.  Cleveland  was  rough ;  Congress  and  peo 
ple  came  to  his  support,  and  we  have  settled 
the  Venezuelan  question.  The  Monroe  Doc 
trine  has  been  vindicated,  and  South  America 
will  not  be  treated  like  Africa.  In  the  general 
popular  approval  which  followed  Mr.  Cleve 
land's  action,  the  opponents  of  any  vigorous 
policy  anywhere  were  silenced  for  the  mo 
ment.  But  it  was  only  for  a  moment.  Stocks 
had  declined,  and  the  cry  of  "jingo,"  and 
"  war,"  and  "  dangerous  and  revolutionary 
policy "  broke  out  strongly.  Yet  the  Presi 
dent  and  Congress  and  the  American  people 
had  merely  been  true  to  what  had  been  the 
traditional  policy  of  the  country  for  more  than 
seventy  years.  Those  who  opposed  them  were 
the  innovators  in  American  politics.  A  weak 
yielding  in  the  case  of  Venezuela  meant  the 
repetition  of  similar  attempts,  and  the  further 
seizure  of  territory  in  the  Americas,  and  that 
would  have  brought  war,  and  probably  many 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  251 

wars,  in  its  train.  The  determined  and  success 
ful  resistance  of  the  United  States  at  the  start 
meant  peace  and  the  avoidance  of  a  fruitful 
cause  of  war.  The  President  and  Congress 
were  aiding  the  cause  of  lasting  peace  for  the 
United  States.  Those  who  opposed  them 
were  doing  what  little  they  could  to  make  us 
a  military  power,  and  bring  on  war.  Nothing 
for  more  than  fifty  years  at  least  has  done  so 
much  for  our  permanent  peace  and  welfare  as 
the  stand  we  took  in  regard  to  Venezuela. 
Nothing  of  late  years  certainly  has  done  so 
much  to  improve  our  relations  with  England 
as  our  attitude  on  this  question,  for  England 
has  respect  only  for  the  strong,  bold,  and  suc 
cessful.  She  now  understands  our  position  in 
regard  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  She  misun 
derstood  it  before,  and  misapprehension  breeds 
differences  while  understanding  and  knowledge 
tend  to  friendship. 

Both  Venezuela  and  Hawaii  were  forced 
upon  us  by  the  new  movement  emanating 
from  Europe,  which  has  developed  within  a 
recent  and  comparatively  short  period.  The 
Cuban  question  came  in  a  somewhat  different 
way,  but  equally  without  instigation  or  sug 
gestion  from  the  United  States.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  same  economic  condi- 


252  OUR    FOREIGN   POLICY 

tions  which  underlie  the  European  seizure  of 
land  in  all  parts  of  the  world  also  affected 
Cuba.  The  general  decline  in  the  world's 
prices,  the  increasing  pressure  of  existing 
debts,  and  the  heightened  severity  of  competi 
tion,  which  set  the  powers  of  Europe  in  mo 
tion  to  seize,  divide,  and  occupy  all  parts  of 
the  earth  on  which  they  could  lay  their  hands, 
fostered  and  stimulated  the  conditions  which 
have  led  to  the  present  revolt  in  Cuba.  But 
behind  these  recent  influences  lies  one  much 
older  and  far  more  efficient — the  determina 
tion  of  the  Cubans  to  free  themselves  from 
the  corruption  and  oppression  of  Spanish  gov 
ernment,  undoubtedly  the  most  intolerable 
now  borne  by  any  Western  people,  except 
those  who  are  so  unhappy  as  to  form  a  part  of 
the  Turkish  dominions.  In  Cuba,  therefore, 
the  troubles  are  primarily  political,  and  are  of 
long  standing. 

When  the  other  Spanish-American  colonies 
revolted  from  the  mother- country,  Cuba  re 
mained  faithful,  and  no  revolution  broke  out 
in  the  island.  The  success,  however,  of  the 
continental  colonies  in  establishing  their  inde 
pendence  gradually  made  itself  felt.  In  1825 
Bolivar  offered  to  invade  the  island,  where 
numerous  societies  were  formed  to  support 


OUR   FOREIGN    POLICY  253 

him  ;  but  the  invasion  was  checked  by  the  in 
tervention  of  our  government,  which  advised 
against  it.  Spain  acted  after  her  kind.  In 
stead  of  ignoring  the  evidences  of  sympathy 
which  had  been  shown  towards  Bolivar's  pro 
posed  invasion,  the  Spanish  government,  by 
an  ordinance  of  the  28th  of  May,  gave  the 
captain-general  all  the  powers  granted  to  the 
governors  of  besieged  towns — that  is  to  say,  it 
put  the  whole  island  under  martial  law.  With 
this  piece  of  needless  and  sweeping  tyranny 
resistance  to  Spain  began  in  Cuba  and  has 
continued  at  shortening  intervals  to  the  pres 
ent  day,  each  successive  outbreak  becoming 
more  formidable  and  more  desperate  than  the 
one  which  preceded  it. 

In  1826  an  insurrection  broke  out,  and  its 
two  chiefs  were  executed.  Soon  after  came 
another,  known  as  the  "  Conspiracy  of  the 
Black  Eagle,"  which  was  also  repressed,  and 
those  engaged  in  it  were  imprisoned,  ban 
ished,  or  executed.  In  1837  the  represent 
atives  of  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  were  ex 
cluded  from  the  Cortes  on  the  ground  that 
the  colonies  were  to  be  governed  by  spe 
cial  law.  In  1850  and  1851  occurred  an  ex 
pedition  for  the  liberation  of  Cuba,  and  the 
death  of  its  leader,  Narcisso  Lopez.  There 


254  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

were  also  expeditions  under  General  Quitman 
and  others,  and  in  1855  Ramon  Pinto  was  put 
to  death  and  many  other  patriots  banished. 
After  this,  for  a  number  of  years,  the  Cubans 
attempted  by  peaceful  methods  to  secure  from 
the  government  at  Madrid  some  relief  from 
the  oppression  which  weighed  upon  them,  and 
some  redress  for  their  many  wrongs.  All  their 
efforts  came  to  naught,  and  such  changes  as 
were  made  were  for  the  worse  rather  than  for 
the  better. 

The  result  of  all  this  was  that  in  1868  a  rev 
olution  broke  out  under  the  leadership  of  Ces- 
pedes.  The  revolutionists  did  not  succeed  in 
getting  beyond  the  eastern  part  of  the  island, 
but  they  were  successful  in  many  engagements. 
They  crippled  still  further  the  already  broken 
power  of  Spain,  and  they  could  not  be  put 
down  by  force  of  arms.  The  war  dragged  on 
for  ten  years,  and  was  brought  to  an  end  only 
by  a  treaty  in  which  Martinez  Campos,  in  the 
name  of  Spain,  promised  to  the  Cubans  certain 
reforms,  to  secure  which  they  had  taken  up 
arms.  In  consideration  of  these  reforms  the 
insurgents  were  to  abandon  their  fight  for  in 
dependence,  lay  down  their  arms,  and  receive 
a  complete  amnesty.  The  insurgents  kept 
their  word.  They  laid  down  their  arms  and 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  255 

abandoned  their  struggle  for  independence. 
Spain  unhesitatingly  violated  the  agreement. 
With  a  cynical  disregard  of  good  faith,  her 
promise  of  amnesty  was  only  partially  kept, 
and  she  imprisoned  or  executed  many  who 
had  been  engaged  in  the  insurgent  cause, 
while  the  promised  reforms  were  either  to 
tally  neglected  or  carried  out  by  some  mock- 
cry  which  had  neither  reality  nor  value.* 
The  result  of  this  treachery,  of  the  blood 
shed  which  accompanied  it,  and  of  the  in 
creased  abuses  in  government  which  followed, 
was  that  the  Cubans  began  again  to  prepare 
for  revolt,  and  in  February,  1895,  the  present 
revolution  broke  out.  The  struggle  now  going 
on  has  developed  much  more  rapidly  than 
any  which  preceded  it,  and  has  been  marked 
by  far  greater  successes  than  the  Cubans  were 
able  to  obtain  in  the  war  which  lasted  from 
1868  to  18/8.  In  the  preceding  rebellion, 
which  was  maintained  for  ten  years,  the  in 
surgents  never  succeeded  in  getting  beyond 
the  great  central  province  of  Santa  Clara,  and 

*  See  pamphlet  by  Adam  Badeau,  Consul-General  in  Cuba, 
1885  ;  also  statement  of  General  Tomaso  Estrada  Pahna, 
printed  for  use  of  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations, 
1896 ;  and  article  by  Clarence  King  in  The  Forum  for  Sep 
tember,  1895. 


256  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

their  operations  were  practically  confined  to 
the  mountainous  region  in  the  eastern  end  of 
the  island.  They  now  control  all  the  island 
except  the  cities  garrisoned  by  the  Spanish. 
It  is  not  my  purpose,  however,  to  enter  into 
any  discussion  of  the  details  of  the. present 
war.  It  is  enough  to  show  that  for  seventy 
years  rebellions  have  broken  out  in  Cuba  at 
short  intervals,  each  one  being  worse  than  its 
predecessor,  and  proving  plainly  that  Spanish 
rule  and  peace  are  an  impossible  combination 
in  the  island. 

The  next  point  is  as  to  our  own  policy  in 
the  past  in  regard  to  Cuba.  The  many  civil 
wars  in  Cuba  have  given  abundant  opportunity 
for  declarations  of  that  policy  and  for  learn 
ing  what  the  action  of  our  government  has 
been.  John  Quincy  Adams,  when  Secretary 
of  State,  instructed  our  minister  to  Spain  as 
follows : 

"  These  islands  [Cuba  and  Porto  Rico]  from 
their  local  position  are  natural  appendages  to 
the  North  American  continent,  and  one  of 
them,  Cuba,  almost  in  sight  of  our  shores,  has, 
from  a  multitude  of  considerations,  become  an 
object  of  transcendent  importance  to  the  com 
mercial  and  political  interests  of  our  Union. 
.  .  .  Such  indeed  are,  between  the  interests 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  257 

of  that  island  and  this  country,  the  geographi 
cal,  commercial,  moral,  and  political  relations 
formed  by  nature,  gathering  in  the  process  of 
time,  and  even  now  verging  to  maturity,  that 
in  looking  forward  to  the  probable  course  of 
events  for  the  short  period  of  half  a  century, 
it  is  scarcely  possible  to  resist  the  conviction 
that  the  annexation  of  Cuba  to  our  federal 
republic  will  be  indispensable  to  the  continu 
ance  and  integrity  of  the  Union  itself.  .  .  . 
Cuba,  forcibly  disjointed  from  its  own  unnatu 
ral  connection  with  Spain,  and  incapable  of 
self-support,  can  gravitate  only  towards  the 
North  American  Union,  which  by  the  same 
law  of  nature  cannot  cast  her  off  from  its 
bosom." 

Henry  Clay,  the  successor  of  Adams  in  the 
Department  of  State,  wrote  as  follows,  likewise 
to  our  minister  at  the  Spanish  Court: 

"  If  the  war  should  continue  between  Spain 
and  the  new  republics,  and  those  islands  [Cuba 
and  Porto  Rico]  should  become  the  object  and 
theatre  of  it,  their  fortunes  have  such  a  con 
nection  with  the  prosperity  of  the  United 
States  that  they  could  not  be  indifferent  spec 
tators,  and  the  possible  contingencies  of  such  a 
protracted  war  might  bring  upon  the  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  duties  and  obliga- 
17 


258  OUR   FOREIGN    POLICY 

tions,  the  performance  of  which,  however  pain 
ful  it  should  be,  they  might  not  be  at  liberty 
to  decline." 

At  a  later  day  Edward  Everett  declared  that 
the  Cuban  question  was  an  American  question, 
and  must  be  so  regarded  by  other  nations. 
We  have  formally  declared  that  we  should  not 
permit  the  transfer  of  Cuba  to  any  other  Eu 
ropean  power,  and  have  always  and  uniformly 
assumed  that  the  fate  of  that  island,  lying  as 
it  does  at  our  very  doors,  was  of  vital  impor 
tance  to  the  United  States.  By  this  declar 
ation  we  have  not  only  shut  out  all  European 
powers  except  Spain  from  the  island,  but  we 
have  incurred  a  responsibility  towards  the  Cu 
bans  which  we  can  neither  disguise  nor  es 
cape. 

During  the  last  Cuban  war  we  adhered  firmly 
to  our  traditional  attitude,  and  did  not  hesitate 
to  take  steps  looking  towards  the  separation  of 
the  island  from  the  government  of  Spain. 

This  was  the  policy  pursued  by  Mr.  Fish, 
who  endeavored  to  purchase  Cuban  indepen 
dence  from  Spain.  It  was  approved  at  that 
time  by  Mr.  Sumner,  although  he  felt  a  very 
natural  reluctance  to  extend  any  help  to  the 
Cubans  while  negro  slavery  still  existed  in  the 
island.  At  a  later  date,  in  1876,  Mr.  Fish  de- 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  259 

clarcd  that  the  United  States  would  intervene 
unless  the  war  was  brought  to  an  end — a  dec 
laration  that  undoubtedly  hastened  the  con 
cessions  which  stopped  hostilities. 

We  can  learn  the  views  of  American  states 
men  at  that  time  from  the  words  of  Sumner, 
in  1869: 

"  For  myself  I  cannot  doubt  that  in  the  in 
terest  of  both  parties,  Cuba  and  Spain,  and  in 
the  interest  of  humanity  also,  the  contest 
should  be  closed.  This  is  my  judgment  on 
the  facts,  so  far  as  known  to  me.  Cuba  must 
be  saved  from  its  bloody  delirium,  or  little  will 
be  left  for  the  final  conqueror.  Nor  can  the 
enlightened  mind  fail  to  see  that  the  Spanish 
power  on  this  island  is  an  anachronism.  The 
day  of  European  colonies  has  passed — at  least 
in  this  hemisphere,  where  the  rights  of  man 
were  first  proclaimed  and  self-government  first 
organized." 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  improve  on  Mr. 
Sumner's  statement  of  the  larger  aspects  of 
the  Cuban  question,  and  in  making  it  he  mere 
ly  followed  the  line  marked  out  by  Clay  and 
Adams  and  Everett.  There  is  nothing  new, 
therefore,  in  the  position  of  those  who  believe 
that  the  Cuban  question  is  one  of  supreme  im 
portance  to  the  United  States,  with  which  we 


260  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

are  immediately  concerned,  and  which  it  be 
hooves  us  in  the  interests  of  humanity,  of  busi 
ness,  and  political  prudence  alike  to  bring  to 
a  final  settlement.  The  new  ground  is  that 
taken  by  those  Americans  who  oppose  Cuba 
and  the  Cubans  and  take  the  side  of  Spain. 

It  is  worth  while  to  consider  for  a  moment 
what  is  said  for  this  new  position  in  our  poli 
tics  and  foreign  policy.  One  objection  to  the 
Cuban  cause  is  that  the  Cubans  are  of  differ 
ent  race  and  creed,  of  Spanish  extraction,  and 
with  many  people  of  mixed  blood  among  them. 
As  to  the  validity  of  this  objection  I  will  say 
nothing,  for  I  desire  to  enumerate  objections 
rather  than  try  to  confute  them.  Yet  it  may 
be  observed  in  passing  that  this  particular 
proposition  is  both  queer  and  novel  among  a 
people  who  asserted  that  all  men  were  creat 
ed  equal,  and  who  have  also  the  distinguished 
honor  to  be  the  countrymen  of  Abraham 
Lincoln. 

Another  objection,  always  brought  forward 
as  conclusive,  is  that  those  who  sympathize 
with  Cuba  and  with  a  prompt  settlement  of 
the  Cuban  question  desire  war.  This  is  mere 
outcry  and  an  appeal  to  fear  and  greed.  A 
firm  attitude  is  the  best  promoter  of  peace. 
Weakness  and  vacillation  are  the  surest  in- 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  261 

ccntives  to  war.  It  is,  for  instance,  part  of 
what  is  called  the  "  jingo  "  policy  to  desire 
the  purchase  of  the  Danish  Islands.  It  was 
the  policy  of  Lincoln  and  Sevvard  to  obtain 
these  islands  for  a  naval  station,  and  here  again 
the  "  jingo"  of  to-day  is  in  accord  with  the 
opinion  and  the  action  of  the  greatest  states 
men  of  the  past.  But  there  is  more  in  this 
than  the  acquisition  of  a  naval  station.  Den 
mark  desires  to  part  with  these  islands.  She 
would  like  to  sell  them  to  us,  but  there  are 
other  possible  purchasers.  The  German  Em 
peror  is  said  to  covet  them.  An  attempt  on 
the  part  of  Germany  to  take  them  would  lead 
to  serious  trouble,  if  not  to  war,  with  the 
United  States.  Our  purchase  of  the  islands, 
on  the  other  hand,  would  at  once  remove  all 
possibility  of  trouble  with  any  other  nation 
over  their  possession,  and  would  therefore  be 
preeminently  a  peace  measure. 

The  case  of  the  Danish  Islands  illustrates 
on  a  small  scale  the  true  course  in  the  much 
larger  and  graver  question  of  Cuba.  That  the 
condition  of  the  island  is  an  anxiety  and  an 
noyance,  that  American  property  is  destroyed, 
that  the  war  causes  alarm  to  business,  are  all 
due  to  the  simple  fact  that  Cuba  belongs  to 
Spain.  So  long  as  that  ownership  continues, 


262  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

anxiety,  agitations,  and  alarms  of  war  are  sure 
to  continue  also,  in  connection  with  it.  Thus 
we  come  to  the  great  principle  which  under 
lies  nearly  every  phase  of  our  foreign  policy. 
In  1776  we  ourselves  began  the  movement  to 
drive  Europe  out  of  America.  We  succeeded 
in  our  effort.  The  people  of  South  America 
followed  our  example  and  expelled  the  gov 
ernment  of  Spain.  In  these  days,  when  it  is 
the  fashion  to  sneer  at  the  Cubans,  it  may  not 
be  amiss  to  recall  the  fact  that  Bolivar  was 
looked  upon  in  the  United  States  as  a  hero 
and  called  a  second  Washington.  The  Mon 
roe  Doctrine,  which  followed,  was  but  a  decla 
ration  to  the  same  effect  that  European  gov 
ernments  must  not  return  to  the  places  from 
which  they  had  been  expelled,  nor  seek  to  ac 
quire  new  territory  in  the  Americas.  The  re 
peated  revolts  in  Cuba  result  from  the  oper 
ation  of  the  same  forces.  It  is  part  of  the 
movement  which  we  began  more  than  a  hun 
dred  years  ago,  and  the  historical  and  po 
litical  evolution  which  it  represents  may  be 
delayed,  but  cannot  be  stopped.  As  Sumner 
said,  European  colonial  government  is  an  an 
achronism  in  this  century  in  the  Americas. 
Ever  since  we  started  the  movement  ourselves 
we  have  fostered  and  sympathized  with  it, 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  263 

and  this  course  has  been  not  only  natural,  but 
right.  Practically  all  our  difficulties  with  other 
nations,  except  under  the  abnormal  conditions 
of  our  civil  war,  have  been  due  solely  to  the 
possession  of  colonies  in  this  hemisphere  by 
European  powers.  Aside  from  the  Mexican 
war,  we  have  never  been  disturbed  by  our 
neighbors  to  the  south,  and  have  easily  settled 
our  occasional  disagreements  with  them.  But 
where  European  possessions  exist,  there  our 
serious  troubles  outside  our  own  borders  have 
arisen.  One  strong  reason  for  the  regard  felt 
for  Russia  in  the  United  States  is  that  she 
recognized  these  conditions  in  the  Western 
hemisphere,  voluntarily  withdrew  from  Amer 
ica,  and  sold  us  Alaska.  On  the  other  hand, 
all  our  troubles  with  England  have  grown  out 
of  her  rule  in  Canada,  and  if  it  were  not  for 
Canada  it  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  of 
anything  which  could  disturb  our  relations 
with  Great  Britain.  The  same  is  true  in  even 
greater  degree  of  Spain,  whose  colonial  govern 
ment  is  oppressive  and  corrupt.  We  do  not 
seek  or  desire  the  annexation  of  Cuba,  but  it 
is  for  the  highest  interests  and  for  the  peace 
of  the  United  States,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
large  gain  to  humanity  and  civilization,  that 
Spain  should  be  driven  out  and  the  island  be- 


264  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

come  an  independent  republic.  Those  who 
desire  a  firm  and  positive  attitude  in  regard  to 
Cuba  not  only  sustain  the  true  and  traditional 
policy  of  the  United  States,  but  also  follow 
the  course  of  action  which  makes  most  surely 
for  our  own  peace  and  welfare.  Those  who 
oppose  such  a  policy  are  in  this  as  in  other  in 
stances  the  innovators.  They  keep  alive  a  dan 
gerous  situation,  and  they  set  themselves  to 
resist  the  whole  course  of  the  social  and  politi 
cal  evolution  of  the  last  hundred  years  on  the 
American  continents. 

Moreover,  behind  all  these  political,  histori 
cal,  and  economical  reasons  for  standing  by 
the  traditional  foreign  policy  of  the  United 
States  lies  the  natural  sentiment  of  the  Ameri 
can  people.  We  sympathize  instinctively  with 
the  movement  to  drive  European  rule  from 
the  Americas,  and  with  men  who  are  struggling 
anywhere  for  freedom  and  for  the  right  to  gov 
ern  themselves.  In  certain  quarters  to-day  it  is 
the  fashion  to  sneer  at  this  American  senti 
ment  and  to  ask  why  we  should  sympathize 
with  the  Cubans  or  waste  thought  upon  them. 
As  it  is  a  matter  of  sentiment,  and  as  right 
sentiment  has  and  ought  to  have  a  large  part 
in  the  affairs  of  men,  perhaps  we  cannot  an 
swer  the  inquiry  of  this  new  school  of  Ameri- 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  265 

cans  better  than  by  Browning's  noble  lines  to 
some  one  who  asked  him  why  he  was  a 
Liberal  : 

"  But  little  do  or  can  the  best  of  us ; 

That  little  is  achieved  through  Liberty. 
Who  then  dares  hold — emancipated   thus — 

His  fellow  shall  continue  bound  ?     Not  I 
Who  live,  love,  labor  freely,  nor  discuss 

A  brother's  right  to  freedom — That   is  'why.'" 

This  has  ever  been  the  sentiment  of  Amer 
ica.  When  the  modern  friends  of  Spain  in  the 
United  States  jeeringly  ask  why  we  should 
trouble  ourselves  about  the  Cubans  or  Arme 
nians  or  Cretans,  and  go  so  far  afield  with  our 
sympathies,  they  fail  to  remember  the  history 
of  their  own  country.  They  forget  the  Con 
gress  which,  stirred  by  the  splendor  of  Web 
ster's  eloquence,  sent  words  of  encourage 
ment  to  the  Greeks.  They  forget  whose  sym 
pathies  went  far  across  the  waters  to  the 
Hungarians,  and  who  were  the  people  who 
brought  Kossuth  to  safety  in  one  of  their  own 
men-of-war,  while  through  the  lips  of  Web 
ster  they  rebuked  the  insolence  of  Austria. 
Sympathy  for  men  fighting  for  freedom  any 
where  is  distinctively  American,  and  when 
from  fear  or  greed  or  from  absorption  in  mere- 


266  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

ly  material  things  we  despise  and  abandon  it, 
we  shall  not  only  deny  our  history  and  our 
birthright,  but  our  faith  in  our  own  Republic, 
and  all  we  most  cherish  will  fade  and  grow  dim. 
This  opposition  to  the  popular  and  public 
sympathy  for  those  who  seek  freedom  -and  re 
sist  oppression  finds  expression  also  in  other 
ways.  It  leads  some  of  its  adherents  from 
hostility  to  the  Cubans  to  opposition  to  build 
ing  and  maintaining  a  proper  navy  and  to 
the  construction  of  coast  defences.  Here  it  is 
again  in  flagrant  contradiction  to  the  policy 
which  Washington  declared,  and  to  which  we 
have  always  tried  to  be  true,  that  in  time  of 
peace  we  should  be  prepared  for  war,  because 
in  that  way  alone  could  peace  be  preserved. 
We  paid  heavily  in  the  war  of  1812  for  the 
abandonment  of  Washington's  policy  by  Jef 
ferson,  and  we  learned  our  lesson  not  only 
from  our  sufferings  in  that  war,  but  from  the 
victories  of  our  ships  on  lake  and  ocean. 
From  that  time  until  the  civil  war  it  was  our 
consistent  policy  to  maintain  a  navy  of  mod 
erate  size  but  of  the  highest  efficiency,  and 
composed  of  ships  of  the  best  type  in  each 
class.  On  the  same  theory,  and  taught  by  the 
same  experience,  we  fortified  our  ports.  Those 
fortifications  still  stand,  and  they  were  once 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY  267 

the  best  of  their  kind.  They  are  absolutely 
useless  now,  owing  to  the  change  and  advance 
in  methods  of  attack,  but  they  are  neverthe 
less  monuments  of  a  well -settled  American 
policy  and  teach  a  lesson  not  to  be  neglected. 
After  our  civil  war  the  nation  desired  only 
to  rest  and  bind  up  its  wounds.  Navy  and 
coast  defences  were  alike  forgotten.  At  last 
this  neglect  attracted  public  attention,  and 
under  President  Arthur  and  Secretary  Chand 
ler  we  began  to  build  a  new  navy.  Somewhat 
later  we  entered  upon  the  reconstruction  and 
armament  of  our  coast  defences  to  suit  modern 
conditions.  This  renewal  of  our  old  and  tradi 
tional  policy  went  on  with  increasing  vigor 
until  the  foreign  questions  of  the  last  few  years 
rose  into  prominence.  Then  it  began  to  en 
counter  opposition.  The  very  people  who 
objected  to  our  taking  a  firm  stand  in  relation 
to  any  foreign  power,  because  we  were  de 
fenceless  and  unable  to  resist  attack,  began  to 
oppose  our  taking  any  steps  to  put  the  coun 
try  in  a  state  of  defence  and  able  to  resist  an 
enemy.  This  sounds  like  a  paradox,  and  yet 
the  position  is  logical.  The  strongest  card  in 
the  hands  of  those  who  opposed  the  tradi 
tional  American  policy  in  regard  to  the  Mon 
roe  Doctrine  or  Cuba,  or  anything  else,  was 


268  OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 

in  a  desperate  appeal  to  fear.  If  the  country's 
coasts  were  well  defended  and  the  American 
navy  strong  and  efficient,  they  would  be  un 
able  to  make  this  appeal  or  to  arouse  terror, 
and  so  they  went  from  the  particular  to  the 
general  and  attacked  the  policy  of  building 
a  navy  or  providing  proper  coast  defences. 
Here  again,  as  in  the  question  of  foreign  re 
lations,  they  departed  widely  from  the  past 
and  took  a  line  of  action  wholly  new  in  our 
politics. 

It  is  easy  to  see  where  the  "jingoes"  get 
their  ideas  of  the  proper  foreign  policy  for  the 
United  States,  and  for  the  course  which  they 
advocate  in  regard  to  the  navy  and  coast  de 
fences.  They  offer  nothing  new  and  they  do 
not  seek  war  at  all,  but  solely  the  preservation 
of  conditions  and  policies  which  shall  insure 
our  peace  and  guard  our  rights.  They  simply 
cling  to  the  American  traditions  and  beliefs 
which  have  been  handed  down  to  them  from 
the  time  of  Washington,  and  which  all  Ameri 
can  statesmen  have  held  to  as  articles  of  faith 
until  these  later  days.  The  interest  of  novelt)/ 
lies  with  those  who  oppose  these  inherited 
and  distinctively  American  policies  and  tradi 
tions.  What  they  offer  as  an  advantage  is  not 
quite  clear,  but  the  danger  of  their  proposed 


OUR    FOREIGN    POLICY 


269 


course  is  very  obvious,  for  the  nation  that 
shrinks  and  yields  is  the  nation  which  is  sure 
to  fight  in  the  end  when  it  is  forced  into  it  by 
neighbors  whom  their  weakness  has  encouraged 
to  attack  them  at  a  disadvantage. 
••  The  mission  of  the  great  American  Democ 
racy  is  peace.  We  seek  no  conquests  and  de 
sire  to  interfere  with  no  other  people.  But 
that  mission  can  be  fulfilled  only  on  the  con 
dition  that  we  show  ourselves  strong  and  not 
weak;  firm  and  not  vacillating.  As  we  respect 
the  rights  of  others,  so  must  all  others  respect 
our  rights,  and  the  just  control  which  we  must 
exercise  in  the  Americas. 


Of    TH€ 

UNIVERSITY 

Of 


THE   END 


ERRATA 

Page  195-  lines  13  and  14,  for  "Chmbol  "  read  "Cbt 
or  Cabof;  line  22,  for  (chaWs)  rc,l(j  ^^  or 
caootsj. 

NOTE.— Chabot  is  the  ordinary  name  of  the  fish  used 
>n  Heraldry,  but  in  the  Island  of  [ersev  there  is  a  fish 
called  locally  "cabot." 


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